


Pastor

by aadarshinah



Series: The Ancient!John 'verse [1]
Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ancient John Sheppard, Ancient Technology, Ascension, Hostage Situation, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Alternating, Season/Series 01, Torture, Violence, Wraith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-03
Updated: 2011-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-24 06:53:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aadarshinah/pseuds/aadarshinah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time a man so loved his city that he sacrificed ten thousand years of his life to protect it. Alone in the darkness and silence, he was eventually discovered by those who would call his city home...</p><p>[The entire first season of the Ancient!John 'verse - ie, a rewrite of SGA's S1]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pastor, Part One

**Author's Note:**

> I started out writing the Ancient!John 'verse 'cause I couldn't get the idea out of my head. It's now nine stories, two drabbles long and growing.  
> This is Season One, in it's entirety.  
> \- - -  
> retroactively beta'd by [spaci1701](http://spaci1701.livejournal.com/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #1 in the Ancient!John 'verse, a rewrite of "Rising," Parts I & II  
> 

Pastor

An Ancient!John Story

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first thing Rodney does after Atlantis rises from the deep is interface his computer into the city systems and try to figure out what the hell just happened because even Ancient cities don't just do things like that for no reason, even – no – especially when they're so low on power breathing could've breached the shields.

The city tells him straight away but, despite the fact he's been working with Ancient tech for the better part of a year now, it takes him a couple minutes to translate what it's saying into English – not that it helps much because:

the Custodian raised Us

really didn't really make any sense, unless Atlantis is talking about some really bizarre janitorial code. So he asks the city, via a quick line of code they'd discovered at the Antarctic outpost that was essentially the Ancient version of a F1 button, what the custodian was and why it might care if the human occupants of the city lived or died.

Come See

it says, which is a weird enough thing for a computer to say, even if it hadn't been followed by the even more bizarre statements:

Go to the Cathedra Bring a Physic 

Rodney blinks a couple of times at this and rechecks his translation. Cathedra was the Ancient name for a control chair, like the one they'd found in Antarctica. But why would the city want him to bring a doctor to-?

Tapping his headset violently, "Carson, drop whatever you're doing and meet me in the Chair Room like five minutes ago," Rodney grabs his laptop and starts purposefully towards the nearest door, only to realize that he's no idea where the Chair Room in this place is. Before he could stumble to a halt however, his laptop beeps at him and, upon glaring angrily at it, he discovers that a map had been uploaded onto it. A map which is currently blinking directions to what is, hopefully, the Chair Room or cathedra or whatever the hell the Ancients called it.

"Rodney," Carson sounds annoyed, even over the headsets, "I'm trying to set up an infirmary here. I dinnae have time to be your guinea pig-"

"I don't need your gene right at this moment," he huffs, finding the staircase right where the map on his laptop said it should be and taking the stairs three at a time, "I need your rain-man voodoo."

The Doc goes from indignant to worried in less time than it takes Rodney to open the door to what his laptop is telling him is the proper room. "What happened?"

"I'm not entirely certain," he says faintly, 'cause he's still not sure he's not hallucinating the figure sprawled over the arm of the Control Chair, "but I'm pretty sure I've found a real, live Ancient, only I'm not sure how much longer he's going be 'live' if you don't get up here soon..."

* * *

 

The first thing Iohannes notices is the pain. Every inch of him aches and he can feel all the old injuries – the ones the cathedra had held in stasis while he was plugged into the city – clambering to make their presence known.

The second thing he notices is the noise. Atlantis had never been quiet, not even when she'd been empty, but this was more than just the quiet, sleepy song of a slumbering city; it was voices. People, speaking in a language he doesn't know, who'd come through the astria porta. People who, according to the city, had come in a pons astris from Avalon, but weren't Alteran.

/Descendants,/ Atlantis suggests when she catches this thought running in circles 'round his head, /from Terra./

Iohannes doesn't remember Terra. He knows his great-grandmother, Ilaria, flew the city from that galaxy to this and that his father and everyone else left alive at the end of the war had gone back through the porta while he'd remained behind. He knew, in theory, that his people had seeded humanoid life in Avalon just as they had here and in the home galaxy, but he'd always thought... He'd always thought that the others would return with a way to defeat the Wraith within a few decades; absolutely no longer than a few centuries. But if descendants from Terra had found their way through the porta, then it must have been...

/How long..?/ he asks the city.

/Ten thousand two hundred and three years, nineteen days, seven hours, and twenty-two minutes,/ Atlantis answers, an air of concern in her tones. She worries he will be angry for hiding this from him and it shows as much in the sudden clatter of the air recyclers as it does in her mental tone. She knows how much he wanted to see his people again, how much he'd hoped Melia's plan had worked. /We grieve with you,/ and, for a moment she dims her lights, sharing his pain.

The flickering lights cause the Terrans to quiet, no doubt scared the city will still fail despite the fact he'd lifted her to the surface as soon as he'd realized how much their arrival was draining her remaining power. For some reason this thought amuses him. Atlantis had, after all, withstood three generations of Wraith siege and several thousand years under his own tender ministrations and it's unlikely a few descendants, wherever they might be from, would be her undoing.

He quickly opens his eyes, intending to reassure them. When he finds himself not in the cathedra chamber but rather what appears to be a makeshift infirmary, he looks heavenward instead and says, "Meretrix," because what else could Atlantis be if she's already betrayed him this way to these people?

Atlantis momentarily brightens the lights overhead (which is about as close, he's discovered, as a city can get to sticking her tongue out at him, though she's been known to play with the temperature of showers and small, windowless rooms as well) but makes no effort to refute him. Whatever names he calls her, she knows she will always be his best girl and, sometimes, that really stinks.

Iohannes glares at the ceiling for moment before sighing resignedly and turning towards the probable Terran descendants cluttered around his bed. Of the four of them, three are men: one with the hard, harsh lines he'd seen in eminentia of famous generals from the old wars, from back when his people still fought wars amongst themselves; another wore an expression of deep concern he immediately associated with bad tidings; and the third seemed to quiver with barely contained energy and, even in silence, seemed to being asking who and what and why why why. All three, however, seemed to defer, by varying degrees, to the woman among them – a pretty, dark-haired woman in red who looked torn between amusement and worry.

She says something to him in that strange, guttural language and frowns when he shakes his head.

"Atlantis is still working on the translation matrix," he tells her in Lantean, smirking a little because... well, he's just found out he's spent the last ten thousand years hooked up to the cathedra and he's never going to see the others again unless he Ascends, but even that might not work and it's not like he ever wanted to go that route anyway, and it's either plastering on a fake smile or freaking out so fake smile it is. "It'll take a little while. She's not had to do anything more difficult than power regulation for a while."

The woman nods slowly and says something to one of the men, who begins to babble in a way Iohannes suspects might be incoherent to even those who speak his language, and starts fiddling with a device he's carrying. After a moment he hands it over to the woman, who fiddles with it herself for a moment before reading, "Do you understand me now?" awkwardly from it. Her accent is strange and her wording formal, but it's passable Alteran.

"Yes," he says slowly, giving them time to enter his words into their own translation program. "How do you know Alteran? Did," he swallows uneasily here and feels his smile faltering as he hopes against hope that maybe, just possibly, Atlantis was wrong, or that some of his people have survived on Terra all these years, "did someone teach you, or..."

Iohannes cannot say the or, but the woman seems to understand. "I'm sorry, but this language is known as Latin on our home world and while it is basis for many languages on our planet there have been no native speakers in many thousands of years."

He looks away at that. It's not the loss that hurts: it's the sudden confirmation that he's alone in the universe. He'd always been solitary, even by Lantean standards, but this was something else, worse than the strings of false notes that had pervaded Atlantis' song since the Exodus...

"My name is Elizabeth Weir," she says when he finally looks back, "and I'm the head of this expedition. Might I ask your name?"

/Elizabeta is a Lantean name,/ the city whispered in his mind, so happy to have people within her walls again that she's already forgotten his pain. /They are descendants. We can be alive again./

He feels sucker punched at that, more so than he had when he's learned his people were long dead. After all, wasn't he her pastor? Hadn't he been keeping her alive all this time? It's easier to hide this pain, however. Iohannes knows Atlantis is grateful to him and she, like a small child, is merely caught up in the excitement of a new toy. She wouldn't even understand if he tried to explain why it hurt. So instead he asks, /Is the translation matrix finished?/ his smile never faltering even as the woman – Elizabeth – seems confused by his lack of response.

/Yes. Now that I know they are descendants, it is easy. Their language is about thirty percent Lantean, mixed with one of the native tongues catalogued back when we were on Terra, once several hundred generations of drift are taken into account... Uploading now./

He closes his eyes as he feels the neural nodes in his brain flair with sudden life. Nothing seems to happen for a moment, then there's that click and he suddenly understands the voices all around him. "My name," he tells them, his grin completely real as their eyes widen at his use of their own language, "is Iohannes Ianideus Licinus Pastor." He waits at beat, during which Elizabeta and the others don't even blink, before continuing, "It's a bit pretentious, I know, but that's my father for you. Most everyone just calls- called me Iohannes."

* * *

 

Rodney is the first one to regain his voice after the Ancient starts speaking English. "Iohannes?" he asks, "Isn't that the Latin version of John?" The Ancient, of course, has no idea what he's talking about, but Elizabeth does and that's all he needs before continuing, "And Latin was based off the language of the Ancients. See, I told you: real, live Ancient."

"Yes, Rodney, but-"

"But nothing. The city told me that the 'Custodian' raised it and told me to go to the command chair to find him and, voilà, there he is. Just think of all the things he could tell us about-"

"You do realize," the Ancient – John – says, somewhat amusedly, "that I can understand everything you're saying, right?"

Elizabeth smiles at him. "Yes, though I'm curious as to how."

"Translation matrix. Atlantis figured out your language and piped it into my head so we could talk to each other. It's still a little fiddly, but..." he shrugs as if to say what can you do? then grimaces, looking down, seeming entranced by the bandages covering, well, pretty much all of him. He looks odd, this Ancient, in white hospital scrubs. He looks too normal, too human, and a human in pretty bad shape at that. Well, excellent shape if you consider he's probably been around for a couple thousand years.

"You have three broken ribs," Carson tells him, finally giving in to his need to practice his voodoo and moving closer, poking and prodding at the bandages in a way that certainly couldn't be standard medical procedure, "and a broken leg, as well as a mild case of hypothermia, which isn't at all surprising given how cold it was when we first arrived. And I'm still not certain I've managed to get all of the glass out of your cuts. What happened to you, lad?"

Rolling his eyes, John offered, "I was in the auxiliary control room on the north pier when it was hit," as if that explained everything which, considering the number of windows in this place, it might. "If I'd gone for medical attention, they'd have made me evacuate with everyone else. So I told the city to mask my life signs and high-tailed it to the cathedra to cover their exit. Figured that I wouldn't bleed out before they were able to come back, but... You are a medicus?"

Carson blinks. "I'm a medical doctor, yes, if that's what you're asking. Name's Carson Beckett. I take it then you were a solider, Io- Ionn-"

The Ancient winces. "Iohannes. And, yes, I am- was a soldier, of a sort..."

He can almost feel himself deflate. "A soldier," he hears himself saying forlornly. What they need is a scientist, someone who knows where the ZedPMs are, or how to recharge the ones they have. The last thing they need is another grunt with a gun running around this place unsupervised, even if he was an Ancient grunt.

"A tribunus, actually," John says with a jutted chin, and it would almost remind him of Jeannie at her most stubborn if not for the subtle hint of power behind his words, as if, even confined to a hospital bed, he is a forced to be reckoned with.

Colonel Sumner picks up on it too and his hand flashes to his weapon. John's eyes narrow at the movement, but so do Elizabeth's, and she tells Sumner to back off. Sumner really doesn't like that but before their argument can go very far John's eyes roll up into the back of his head as the city rocks beneath their feet.

* * *

 

When Iohannes comes to again, Atlantis is babbling worriedly in his ear, telling him not to die, that he can't die, that he's hers and she's his and that she needs her pastor, even if their Descendants are running about her halls, because none of them can hear her at all and they almost destroyed one of the buildings near the Old Sea Port trying to interface a fusion reactor with a damaged power conduit and luckily the loud one who seemed disappointed he was a soldier seemed to have a clue what he was doing because he found out what the others had done and stopped them and yelled at them most hilariously for a bit and could he pass along her list of things-that-needed-to-be-fixed because she thinks that that one might be able to help?

He groans at the onslaught. /Calm down,/ he tells the city, but her enthusiasm is contagious and none of the Terrans seem to be watching him at the moment, so he starts unhooking himself from their medical equipment. It's all rather frightfully primitive but they did pick the glass out of all his wounds which was all he really needed to be able to heal himself properly.

He finds his uniform at the foot of the bed and changes into it quickly, glad he has enough energy left over to mend the worst of the damage the attack on the north pier did to it. It's a bit conspicuous but less so than the all-white outfit they'd stuck him in at the infirmary, and he needs to get to the porta in a bad way, because it is engaged and the cataracta was down and he hadn't had a chance to warn them about the Wraith or the Asurans or anything. Granted, they are probably able to take care of themselves but he's been taking care of Atlantis for far too long to check it out.

It's madness around the porta when he steps out of the vectura. There are people in strange uniforms trying to interface their devices into the consoles on the upper level while the lower level is crowded with people and crates of goods. The only one he recognizes from before is Elizabeta and she's having a heated discussion with a young soldier on the stairs and, since most everyone is watching them with interest, no one seems to notice him until he slouches up behind them.

"What did you do?" he asks, using the tone he'd perfected after he'd been transferred to Triarius, where the praetor had not taken kindly to his city's pastor being a member of the Lantean Guard and his displeasure flowed freely down the ranks.

"Nothing, sir. It's just-" the soldier begins automatically before seeming to realize that Iohannes isn't a superior officer or, in fact, anyone he recognizes at all.

Apparently, though, he was wrong about Elizabeta being the only one from earlier in the room because at that moment the blue-eyed one Atlantis likes so much comes rushing over towards them, hands all movement, "This is Iohannes, Lieutenant, our resident Ancient. You can call him John. It's what I do."

"You do?" Iohannes hadn't noticed this but, then again, he'd been unconscious most of the time since he'd been taken from the cathedra.

"Yes," he said dismissively. "It's easier."

Iohannes shrugged at that. It wasn't like he'd ever been that attached to his name to begin with. "It's also easier to do introductions both ways, but, seeing as how everyone seems to be in a hurry, I guess we can skip that part and get to the part where you explain about all the shouting and then I – we – do something about it?" He's better with actions then with people. Or talking. Or having free time to think about the fact that it's not Ganos Lal overseeing porta operations from her office on high, and that it will never be Ganos Lal or Melia or Moros or any other Lantean in that office ever again.

"Well, yes, you're right. I'm Doctor Rodney McKay, you already know Elizabeth, and this is Lieutenant..."

"Ford," Lieutenant Ford offers.

"Lieutenant Ford, yes. Now that we've taken care of that, what's this about Colonel Sumner being gone? I mean, sure, the guy was a complete and total ass, but I've been reliably informed that you don't make it to colonel without having some clue what you're doing, even in the American military, so..."

Iohannes is about to ask a question, about what colonel and lieutenant and American meant, when a young boy separates from the group in front of the porta and announces, "They were taken by the Wraith, Ancestor."

Wraith is a term he understands. Ancestor is another. They appear to be two of the few things that haven't suddenly changed since he plugged himself into the cathedra and, together, fill him with an ice-cold dread.

The first is a curse, a reminder that his people were just as fallible as those whose lives they'd seeded throughout multiple galaxies.

The second, though, was worse. It was a reminder of all the laws he'd rallied against – do not interfere, do not intercede, do not show undo interest, do not intervene, - laws that said, despite the hand his people had played in creating the Wraith, he was not allowed to do anything to stop them from terrorizing their descendants in this galaxy. It probably would have gone on like that forever if the Wraith hadn't started attacking Lantean outposts and by then, of course, it was too late for any effective offence.

Despite their ridiculous lack of foresight, the Council had been right about some things and one of those was that they weren't gods to be worshipped because their technology was superior. These new descendants, however, didn't seem to have gotten the message because they looked about one step away from prostrating themselves before him. It would be so easy to just let them, too. If playing the part of a god is what it took to stop the Wraith, to keep untold thousands from dying...

He swallows hard and walks down the stairs to the boy, who's looking up at him with wide, reverential eyes. The city's mostly dark, running on the barest of minimum power but the inscriptions on the steps still glows to life as he walks down them. When he reaches the boy, he kneels down until they are at eye level and offers the only words he can, words he'd heard Father say on his first trip through the porta: "I am a Lantean, not a god. Our science may be magic to you, but it is only science. I do not want your prayers or your praise, only your friendship. Do you understand?" The boy nodded. Iohannes smiled. Maybe this would work out after all. "Now, what is your name and what can you tell me about the Wraith who visited your world today? Then we shall see what we can do to get your people back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Astria Porta - Stargate  
> Avalon – Alteran name for the Milky Way  
> Caracacta - Iris  
> Cathedra - Control Chair  
> Custodia - Gaurdian, ie someone who is able, via genetics, to "hear" the AIs of various Ancient city-ships  
> Legatus - high-ranking field officer, Lt. Colonel or Colonel  
> Pastor - Shepherd, ie, a custodia that has had nanoids inserted into their nervous system so as to interact with the city; implantation usually happens between ages 10 and 12  
> Pons Astris - Wormhole  
> Terra – Alteran name for Earth  
> Tribunus - mid-ranking feild officer, Major or Lt. Colonel  
> Urbs-Navis - City-Ship  
> Vectura - Transporter


	2. Pastor, Part Two

"Let me guess," John says he steps out onto the balcony. The way he leans against the railing seems to suggest that he's heading for a nap more than an argument but the passion behind his words is clear. "You're going to try to talk me out of rescuing those people."

"You don't even know if they're alive, Iohannes."

John snorts at this. "You don't leave people in the hands of the enemy – especially ones like the Wraith. You're just going to have to trust me-"

"Just listen to me for a moment, alright?" Elizabeth placates, "I'm not any happier about it than you are, but I'm not about to let you or any member of this expedition risk your lives on a suicide mission. Because that's what it's going to be, unless you know something you're not telling us, since one of the few things we do know is that these Wraith defeated the Ancients-"

"I don't need the history lesson," John snaps, everything about him hardening right before their eyes. Rodney wants to say something – to tell them that the door didn't close all the way, that he can hear every word they're saying, even if the wind is snatching most of it away – but can't. He just listens, and feels his own body tense at John's words. "You don't get it, do you? I've been fighting the Wraith my whole life. I know what they can do.

"I've seen good men, men under my command, kill themselves rather than die at their hands... It's a horrible death. The Wraith never kill in the field, not if they can help it. They drag their prisoners back to their ships and feed upon them, sucking all their life – all their potential – out of them. And all that's left at the end are these lifeless husks, worse than corpses..."

Elizabeth pales, but stands her ground. You could always count on Elizabeth for that, no matter how scared she must be. Rodney knows he feels faint just hearing what these Wraith can do. "We're practically defenceless. How do you know going off on this half-baked rescue mission isn't going to bring them all right back here?"

"It probably will," John's voice is calmer now, tired, filled less with indignation than resignation, "either way. You have technology that no other race in the galaxy has, unless the Wraith have radically changed their standard operating procedure in the last few thousand years – which, from what Jinto tells me, they haven't. It won't take them long to realize that Atlantis is alive again, even if your men don't give anything up under torture. She'll always be in danger as long as the Wraith are alive. They'll come. They're always coming. But maybe we can slow them down."

"You don't know that. I mean, who knows, maybe we could negotiate a peaceful-"

"Peaceful? Are you kidding? Haven't you been listening to me, Elizabeta?"

It's foreign, the way he says her name, the stress in all the wrong places. If he'd somehow managed to forget that John was an Ancient it would all have come rushing back with that one word. Because whatever else John may be (a soldier, not a scientist, who thought his name was pretentious and would rather be thought dead than evacuate Atlantis), he's an Ancient. Maybe not an Ascended Ancient, with all the associated powers, but still an alien. Someone they couldn't trust would want the same things and act the same way as a human would.

"They're intelligent, yes," John continues, "but there's no reasoning with them. Do you sit down and have negotiations with your livestock on Terra? Because that's all they see us as, livestock. And if word gets out that you're from Avalon, a galaxy that hasn't been repeatedly culled to the point of extinction over the last few thousand years, and that the only way there is through Atlantis?" he trails off, running a hand over his face.

"But none of that matters right now, 'cause right now there are good people out there who don't deserve the deaths they're facing, and I'm going to rescue them, if I can," he finishes, looking for a moment as old as he probably is. Confident and cocksure, yes, but tired and oh-so-old.

"I won't authorize a rescue mission if I don't know it has a reasonable chance of success... but that's not going to stop you, is it?"

"No, it's not." Of course it wouldn't, and Elizabeth was stupid to expect otherwise. They'd been on Atlantis for less than a day. John lived here and, presumably, knew its ins and outs far better than they did. The idea of her needing to authorize anything was laughable – except for the fact that there were thirteen trigger-happy marines inside who hadn't taken too kindly to their leader's abduction. And Ancient or not, those are long odds if they decided John was a threat.

There is a pause and then, "I can tell Atlantis to stop working for you, if that's what it's going to take. I don't think anyone would be happy with that though, least of all Atlantis..." There's another, longer pause, and when he continues, it's in a voice Rodney almost has to strain to hear, even as he tries not to. Despite this difficulty, he's suddenly very certain that John knows he's there and is letting him listen in for just this reason. "I'm perfectly happy just being what I was before: a simple soldier who, by a quirk of genetics, just so happens to be one of the pastores Atlantis. I've no desire to take control of your people from you, but I'll do what it takes to get them back."

Elizabeth's the one to draw out the silence this time when it comes. "We're going to have to have a nice long talk about things when you get back."

"Yeah," John agrees with a smile Rodney can't quite read, and then he's heading his way, and Rodney has to scuttle away from the door, just in case by some miracle John hadn't noticed him listening in.

But he can worry about all that later. Right now, it seems, he has to narrow down a gate address for John to go to, and who knew how many of the seven hundred twenty possible combinations might actually lock. And then he has to see if he can get the city up and running without a ZedPM, and without those idiots who called themselves electrical engineers nearly blowing up the city in the process. And then hopefully he'll be able to take a proper look at the damage a few generations of siege and a couple millennia underwater have done to the city's systems. If they're lucky – and so far they have been – he'll be able to get a good, proper interface going between their Earth equipment and Atlantis' OS, so they won't have to do all the diagnostics by hand.

And then maybe, just maybe, he'll be able to look up Iohannes Ianideus Licinus Pastor in the Ancients' database, or see if he can't find their equivalent of an Encyclopaedia Britannica and look up a couple of the words John had been flinging around, seemingly unaware that they didn't understand the terms.

* * *

/It was the only thing you could do,/ Atlantis whispers in his ear after the debriefing, when she knows he's about five seconds from running. He knows there was nothing more he could have done – not for the Terran legatus, Colonel Sumner, not for the untold millions who must have died while he slept; not for anyone – and, worse, the descendants know it too.

/I know,/ he tells her, slipping into a small office near the control room and slumping against the wall there. Atlantis knows his mood and keeps the lights off, though she hates it when he does this. But all he really needs is a moment to collect himself, to push aside the horrors of this endless day, and then he can go back to the party the descendants are holding and pretend everything is all right.

Iohannes is very good at pretending. Sometimes it seems to him that all he ever does it pretend.

Elizabeta, it appears, is very good at finding, or else the city has nudged her in the right direction, because she finds his hiding spot not long after he does. Cruelly she turns on the lights. This earns her a glare that doesn't stop her from asking, "How are you doing?"

That earns her a raised eyebrow.

"Okay," she laughs, "I imagine it's been a strange couple of days for you."

"That's one way to put it." He hasn't quite figured out what the other ways might be yet, but figures they'd involve a lot more swearing.

Still, he feels uncomfortable in her presence. She's halfway across the room, quietly pensive, but there's something about her that made him uneasy. He knows now is probably the best chance they'll get for a while for that conversation he promised her but words cannot describe how much he really, really doesn't want to have another confrontation right now. Food would be good right now, and a shower, and then maybe a nice, soft bed because, despite the fact he'd apparently taken the universe's longest nap ever, he's starting to feel pretty tired.

But before his escape plan was fully formed she spoke. "I asked Doctor McKay to look you up in the Ancient database."

"Oh?" he says just as casually because, really, what else is he supposed to say to that? Well, why not just ask me yourself? comes to mind, but then again, so does meretrix, though that one is more directed at Atlantis than Elizabeta. Though if she keeps on turning on lights in perfectly nice dark rooms, she might be on the receiving end of that one too.

"Yes. Apparently tribunus means executive officer in Atlantean."

It actually didn't, but the more senior tribuni had been sent on ahead to secure the encampment on Terra, so it had been true enough in the weeks before the final evacuation. He doesn't bother to correct her, mostly because he can't see the point. "That going to be a problem?"

"The opposite, actually." She gave him a curious grin when he looked up, her eyes crinkling in a way curiously out of line with the rest of her features. "With Colonel Sumner gone, our ranking military officer is Lieutenant Ford and, while he's a good man, the events of the past few days have already proven that we need someone with more experience in charge. I'd ask Sergeant Bates but he has scarcely more and, either way, I'm hesitant to undermine their leadership structure, particularly when we're so far from home..."

"So you want me to do it."

Elizabeta nods, seeming pleased he'd caught on so quickly.

"You do realize that's probably a spectacularly bad idea, right?"

The praetor Triarii would probably have laughed in her face at the idea and he had been a spectacularly cold man who must have gotten physical pleasure from chewing out the lower ranks considering how often he did so.

She'd probably have gotten a similar reaction from most of his commanding officers, for that matter. By the time of the Exodus, he'd been in the Lantean Guard for nearly half his life and, in that time, had had three high-level disciplinary hearings, earned five laudes counselium from two different cities, and probably would have been cashiered from service altogether had not the war with the Wraith needed all able bodies. Had he not been a pastor, he probably still would have been discharged and forced to go to Terra after Triarius, but they needed him too much for that. Sometimes Iohannes felt that was the only reason he stayed in the Guard.

/You know that's not true,/ Atlantis urges, the city humming around him with concern, while Elizabeta continues, "Perhaps. But, at the moment, you're the most qualified person I've got."

He tells the city, /You only say that 'cause you like me./ To Elizabeta, he says nothing.

/We say it because it is true, pastor. The Council may have kept you out of need, but you stayed out of want./

"Adulator," he mutters at the nearest wall. "Atlantis likes to lie to me," he tries to explain to Elizabeta, who's looking at him with concern. "I think she thinks it's beneficial to my mental health or something."

She looks like she's about to ask – ask what he means, what he said, what it means to be a pastor Atlantis – but she swallows her questions, perhaps sensing that there are no real answers. True, his people had done the initial encoding that bound their technology to their genetic sequence and yes, they had imbued their cities' early computers with a sophisticated VI, but no one – not even Father – had been quite certain how the pastores had grown from the two. All Iohannes knows (or will, at least, admit to knowing) is that, over a few thousand years, the urbes-naves developed sentience and a marked preference for specific gene holders. The ones the cities favour are called custodiae. The ones who go the extra step and have the nanoids implanted are pastores and, to them, the cities speak.

"Besides," Elizabeta asks instead, "would you really be comfortable leaving Atlantis' safety to someone else?"

She has him there, so, "Alright. I just hope you don't end up regretting it."

"I won't," she says with such determination he almost – almost – believes her. But she's not the first person to take a chance on him. So far, without even trying, he's managed to disappoint them all. He doubts it will be any different with Elizabeta. So he says nothing and allows himself to be dragged back to the party.

For a while he merely watches but before long he finds himself cornered by a youngish, dark-haired man who introduces himself as Doctor Sean Corrigan, formerly of Trinity University and currently the head of Atlantis' Department of Anthropology, which means less than nothing to Iohannes. He and a tall, dark-skinned woman he calls Doctor Lazos, the UOC linguist proceed to pepper him with questions about the significance of the inscription on stairs in front of the porta.

"It's a poem and a promise, of sorts," he tells them, despite the fact he could go into far more detail if he wants, and gives them his best I-only-know-how-to-shoot-things smile. While it works on the Lantean literature front it invites questions about the position of the military in an Ascension-oriented culture that he's even more uncomfortable answering.

He gets about as far as, "Interesting," before McKay comes up and, thankfully, tells his interrogators that, "As entertaining as I'm sure he finds answering your asinine questions, I'm fairly certain John has better things to do than be the Ancient version of Cole's Notes for you. Like helping me solve the city's power problems. Unless you want to sit around asking your questions in the dark which, admittedly, as anthropologists you might but forgive me if I'd rather we actually had half a chance of being able to defend ourselves when the Wraith inevitably track us down."

"There aren't any more potentia on Atlantis," he tells McKay once they're far enough away from the party that there's little chance he'll be dragged back to it when this is all over.

"Potentia?"

This morning (relatively speaking) he'd been in the auxiliary control room with half-a-dozen scientists and most the remaining soldiers, trying to coordinate Atlantis' defences against the Wraith; now he was in a hallway full of offices that had sat empty for ten thousand years and trying to explain the basis of most Alteran technology to one of their Terran descendants. Trying to make sense of it all is making his head hurt.

"Well," he begins eloquently, holding up his hands in demonstration, "they're crystals about this big that house pockets of spuma spatii quattuor dimensionum from which we extract energy." Iohannes let his hands fall. "I really don't know how to explain them better than that. We use them to power the city."

"Oh? Oh! You mean the ZedPMs."

"ZedPMs?"

"Zero Point Modules. It's what we call your potentia, I think. But yes, I was fairly certain there weren't any left in Atlantis or else you would have told us about them earlier, what with the Wraith and no shields and all of that. I imagine you want the city to stand just as much as we do."

"Oh," Iohannes says rather vacantly because…  
well, oh.

/We like him,/ Atlantis sees fit to insert at this point, /and your father kept a list of planets to which the Council sent the potentia to in the last days./

/I know. And you do?/ Usually urbes-naves take ages to warm up to anyone, even other cities' pastores, and for her to come to this decision so quickly is nothing short of bizarre. But then again, this whole day has been nothing short of bizarre:

He remembers waking up after two fitful hours of attempting to rest in the noisily empty barracks and going to the auxiliary control room to help co-ordinate that day's defences. His eyes are still blurry from the lack of sleep.

He remembers the northern pier being hit by a particularly vicious blast and the room exploding around him. The Terran medicus, Carson, had picked the glass out of his wounds; thin white line still ran across his exposed skin, a sign he'd been too weak to heal himself fully.

He remembers being unable to wake Nicolaa, whose console he'd been hunched over, and being unable to find Josua at all. His uniform had been as much drenched with her blood as his own before he'd used what little energy he had left to repair it enough to escape the infirmary.

He remembers Atlantis telling him to evacuate and going to the cathedra instead. He remembers telling Atlantis to keep lowering the power, until the shields are barely holding the water at bay and there's barely enough life-support pumping into the cathedra room to keep him alive from one breath to the next. He remembers feeling the porta activate and thinking, they're finally returning, before disconnecting himself from the city.

It seems like a single day to him; those thousands of years he spent cajoling Atlantis to spend less and less power, to sacrifice some of the lower levels to maintain structural integrity elsewhere, having passed in the blink of an eye.

He's never felt so tired in his life.

"The Council sent a lot of potentia off-world before the exodus. There should be a list in my father's lab," McKay's whole face lights up at this, like he's just told him the Wraith are gone and it's with sincere regret that he has to bring reality back into the equation, "but it may take some time to find – he was protective of his research to the point of paranoia and never known for his organizational skills to begin with."

"Oh. Well. Wow. I mostly just said what I did about the power to aid in my own escape. The power situation really isn't that dire. The naquadah generators have nothing on ZedPMs but they should be able to power critical systems – other than the shield and weapons and whatnot – for another couple of years at least. It's just that there are some things I wanted to look at down in the labs – or, well, at least what that Czech physicist what's-his-name thinks are labs; knowing the idiots they've tried to foist off on me it's probably the Ancient equivalent of a laundromat or something as equally dull that they've gotten so excited over – so I can claim the best one before one of the idiots who won't know how to properly appreciate it gets their hands on it. And, well, you looked like you could use a hand getting away from those soulless piranhas that make up the anthropology department so yeah, I figured I'd help the both of us.

"But if you actually think you might have an idea where we might find some ZedPMs, that's even better. Do you want to go now or-?" he looks hopeful, yet, oddly enough, not at the thought of finding more pot- ZedPMs.

Guessing the reason, "No," Iohannes says with a smile. "Go pick out your lab. We'll have plenty of time tomorrow."

"Tomorrow. Right. See you then."

McKay's halfway down the hall before Iohannes asks, "Where are these labs this physicist of yours found?"

Scarcely pausing, "The east pier, in one of the taller towers. Why?"

That sounded about right if he was looking for the science labs. But, if Atlantis liked him... "Try the fifty-third level of this building instead; the last Director of Science turned one of the larger rooms on the north side into a personal laboratory. You'll probably like it better."

McKay does stop at this - even turns around to gape at him - and it's more than evident that he doesn't have a clue what to say. "I, er- Thanks, John. That's- thanks."

"No problem." He gives a jaunty wave and turns towards the nearest vectura. Atlantis is telling him that the Terrans have set up sleeping quarters near the south-east pier and, if he's careful, he should be able to get there without being drawn back into the party.

The rest can wait 'til morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adulator - Sycophant  
> The Exodus - When the Ancients abandoned Atlantis for Earth, c. 139 AL, or 8199 BC  
> Helena Lazos – formerly of the University of Crete, Linguist (Greek)  
> Laudes Councelium - "Wreath of the Councillors," essentially a medal  
> Potentia - ZPM  
> Sean Corrigan – formerly of Trinity University, Head of Atlantis' Department of Anthropology (Irish)  
> Spuma Spatii Quattuor Dimensionum - Quantum Foam, the stuff inside of ZPMs  
> Tirianus - A City-Ship, destroyed c. 132 AL, or 8206 BC


	3. Custodia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iohannes is the last Alteran in two galaxies and, quite possibly, the universe. But he isn't quite as alone as he first thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second installment in the Ancient!John 'verse, set just before "Hide & Seek"

He misses the others.

This surprises Iohannes, mostly because he knows none of them would ever have missed him. Oh, Father might've been upset that his only child had died in the Siege, but everyone who might have actually cared for him – Nicolaa and Ciprian, his fellow pastores; Matertera Catalina; even father's on-again, off-again amator, Forcul – had either died during the Exodus or Ascended long before.

/You know that's not true,/ Atlantis whispers to him.

/And you know just as well as I do that's a lie,/ he whispers back as he continues on, walking dead and darkened halls, needing to sleep but unable to for the images that linger there.

Still, regardless of his feelings for them, he misses the others. Or, rather, is pained by their absence. Whenever he enters the conference room he still expects to see the Council there, waiting to either praise or condemn whichever of his actions have most lately drawn their attention. Every time he passes the room the Terrans have designated the mess he must take pause, part of him expecting to see his fellow Lanteans mediating en masse as they work towards Ascension, and hearing any sort of noise coming from within still startles him. And though he'd purposefully chosen for the Expedition's living quarters a section of the city that had been abandoned at the start of the Siege, he still feels he's done something wrong by taking one of the rooms on the sixtieth floor of the Central Spire for himself, even if it is one of the more ascetic.

He misses being able to say something, anything, no matter how innocuous without having to explain himself. A simple comment in the mess one afternoon about missing cicerum had turned into an hour of rapid-fire questions from the anthropologists about Ancient cuisine. His equally simple insistence that they please stop calling him Ancient had been even worse and, so far, only McKay and Elizabeta even seem to remember that his race had never called themselves such.

That he knows of, at least.

/Ten thousand years is a long time. Of course we are ancient to them./

/You are ancient,/ Iohannes reminds Atlantis. She had been built sixty-five million years ago, in a galaxy so far away that the light from its earliest stars would not reach Pegasus before the heat death of the universe. She had seen more generations of Alterans than one person could be reasonably expected to remember. Even having spent the last several millennia with her, he was still aeons younger and she would continue on for aeons after. She always had and always would.

Age is relative. Are you ten thousand, two hundred and thirty-five years old, simply because you were born so long ago? Or are you thirty-four, because that is the age of your physical body? Or are you somewhere in between, the length of your life based entirely off your perception of it?

He reaches out a hand to touch one of the city's walls as he walks, his feet taking him along paths he still knows well despite the intervening years. It's almost a physical pain seeing her so damaged, though the Terrans have done their best to start repairs. But it's only been seven days, most of which have been spent setting up their operations, and restoring Atlantis to the height of her glory would be the work of lifetimes.

The city thrums beneath his fingers, reminding him that despite her injuries, she is still alive. But now that he's had the thought, Iohannes suddenly cannot shake the knowledge that he will never see Atlantis whole, not even if he did not have to worry about the Wraith, or the Asurans, or any of the other dangers that may have developed in this galaxy while he slept. Not only is it impossible that he will live long enough to see it, no pastor ever will because he is the last pastor she will ever have. He will be the last person, in a line that stretches back tens of millions of years, to ever hear her voice. When he dies, she will be alone.

The ballast tanks burble worriedly, /Do not think like this./ Atlantis, knowing what he feels about Ascension, hates it when he thinks about his own mortality. Once, long ago, she'd confided in him that she'd chosen to speak to him because she feared he would otherwise get himself killed, not because he had a desire to die but because he lacked enough desire to live.

He pulls his hand back, feeling angry and not a little small for making her worry. The thrum diminishes but he can still sense it, just as he can sense her intellegentia artificialis everywhere on Lantea. It's comforting and, at times, not a little confining. /I'll think whatever way I want, especially when it's true./

/We will not be alone,/ she chastises. /We will never be alone. The descendants will care for us. If not the Terrans, then some others. We will always be found./

Iohannes is not sure how an ancient, city-wide artificial intelligence could be so naïve but her capacity for self-deception still surprises him. Perhaps it has something to do with the damage she sustained during the war with the Wraith. /The Terrans are the first descendants I know of to have developed the genes needed to operate Alteran technology but even among them it is rare and weak. They won't be able to talk to you and aren't you the one who always says mental health is just as important as the physical?/

/That will change./

/It might not. Besides, the Terrans hardly came here with the intention of starting a colony./

/That too will change./

/It might not. They didn't know about the Wraith. They might decide it's easier just to abandon you./

/You didn't./

/That's different,/ he huffs, turning mid-stride back towards the inner city as if a change in direction would aid his case any. Ciprian had once indicated to him that most pastores' relationships with Atlantis weren't based on mutual antagonism but Iohannes had never quite believed him.

/Is it?/

/You know it is. I... I couldn't leave. You are nothing more than a remote research base to them./

/We were once nothing more than an urbs-navis to the Alterans, but that changed./

He steps into the first vectura on his route and tells it to take him back to the Central Spire. /Not all change is for the better,/ he reminds her. If he sounds bitter, he can't help it. As much as he failed to get along with the others he'd never wanted to outlive them. Not like this. Never like this.

Atlantis tries to comfort him by saying that most, if not all, of those who left during the Exodus probably Ascended and are therefore not really gone.

/That just makes it worse,/ he reminds her.

/In your eyes, perhaps.../ she begins but, before she can continue, they both sense the strange reading coming from the vis mensurae; one biometric reading failing as another, slightly different, replaces it. As if that's not strange enough, the second feels almost Lantean. Almost, in the same way Beckett and Markham and Kusanagi almost fool the sensors. In all her years the city has never seen anything like it. It's coming from the Director's laboratory.

A shot of cold fear runs through him: that lab is McKay's now.

He's still in the vectura and Atlantis takes it upon herself to reroute him to that level, not even waiting to be asked, knowing that he wants, needs to get there as soon as possible. As soon as the vectura doors open he's running, thinking the door open halfway down the hall and reaching for his side arm.

He expects to find McKay injured, at the mercy of some previously undetected alien entity or malfunctioning Lantean device.

What he does not expect is to find him standing in the middle of the room, slack-jawed and wide-eyed but apparently unharmed. Which is sort of a relief, even if it doesn't make much sense. He's not quite sure why, but he likes the guy. It normally takes him a while to warm up to people, but the obvious love McKay has for the city allows the man to slip past his defenses. Besides, there's something refreshing about his unwavering honesty, no matter how brutal it can get. At least it's better than the lies and manipulations of the Council, or the tenterhooks the rest of the Expedition are on around him.

"McKay?" he asks, approaching slowly. Atlantis tells him that the second lifesign has completely replaced the first.

The man gives no answer.

"Rodney?" he tries again, trying to think if he'd ever heard of any creature which might be able to take on another's form or imprint itself on their mind. None immediately come to mind but he'd never paid that much attention to biology and-

-and McKay cuts off that line of thought by replying breathlessly, "I can hear it," though he's still staring at nothing, pupils blown so that only the thinnest, brightest strip of blue remains. "About an hour ago I started to notice this humming and at first I thought it was one of the pieces of equipment, but then it become louder, clearer, more distinct, tonal – almost like a nocturne, in fact – and then I realized it wasn't any of the equipment..." He blinks rapidly, focusing on Iohannes with more intensity than he thought their descendants were capable of. "I'm hearing Atlantis, aren't I?"

Iohannes nods, his own eyes going wide. "But how?" It made no sense for one – you had to have the gene to hear the city and, even then, only a rare few ever actually heard her song as anything more than the occasional background noise. And McKay, he knows, most emphatically does not have the gene.

"Beckett's gene therapy must have worked."

"What gene therapy?"

"The one Beckett's been working on to give people the ATA gene – the one that allows us mere mortals to turn on all your fancy toys."

That was... interesting. But more importantly, "I'm just as mortal as you are, McKay."

"Really? I'm telling you I'm hearing a ten-thousand-year-old city playing Chopin in my head and you choose to focus on that?"

He shrugs this time, fighting back a smile. "Atlantis likes you."

"Atlantis likes me?"

/We do,/ the city in question inserts, not that McKay can hear. It's one thing to hear her song, a simple quirk of genetics. It's another thing, requiring a couple million tiny computers interacting with his nervous system on a cellular level, to hear her voice. It is one reason there had always been far more custodiae than there had ever been pastores.

"Of course she likes you."

"Oh. That's... surprising."

"Is it?"

"A little, yes."

Iohannes has no idea what to say to that, so instead, "Well, I'm glad you're not dead."

McKay doesn't seem to know what to say to that either. "Was that ever a possibility?"

He explains about the vis mensurae.

At the end of it, the Terran is looking at him quite curiously, as if he's a piece of technology behaving contrary to what he's expected. "And so you came running."

It wasn't a question but Iohannes answers anyway. "Yes."

"By yourself."

"I was in a hurry." Even he can hear the defensive note in his voice.

"Because you thought I was dying."

"Yes."

"Huh."

Nothing follows the huh for a long moment. Iohannes wonders if this is a sign he's supposed to leave but then McKay holds up a parma and asks if he knows what it's for. Because he's got the feeling he's being laughed at, he says no.

"Cool. Wanna help me try it out? I've been reading this database of yours and think I've got a good idea of what it's supposed to do. If it works it might just about be the coolest thing ever..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amator - Lover  
> Cicerum - "Of Chickpeas," ie, hummus  
> Matertera - Maternal Aunt  
> Parma - Shield, in this case, the personal shields


	4. Patres et Filii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atlantis is filled with all sorts of things the Ancients left behind. Some are more interesting than others

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third installment in the Ancient!John 'verse, set just after "38 minutes"

"So, life-sucking bugs, life-sucking aliens – anything else you might've forgotten to mention to us about life the Pegasus galaxy, Major?" Rodney asks as they walk towards the transporters.

John has just been released from the infirmary and, while he'd been pronounced both alive and damage free, he is clearly still in a lot of pain. But he insists that all he wants to do was go back to his quarters and sleep, that the Iratus bugs were nowhere near as bad as the Wraith, and that he'd be the picture of health when he wakes up. "Lots, probably. Don't know how accurate any of it is, though."

"Why don't you just start and we can cross things off the list later?"

"There is a database you could try looking in, you know."

"Yes, and you also failed to index it, which I must say is a huge lack of foresight on your part. It really makes me wonder how you ever managed to develop Stargates and flying cities in the first place if you couldn't manage to tabulate your data in any useful way."

"You do realize that I am not personally responsible for all the failings of my race, don't you?"

"Yes, yes, of course I do."

"Besides, the Council had the index deleted when they returned to Terra."

"Earth," he corrects, "and why would they do something like that?"

"We named it first," John teases tiredly – or, at least, Rodney assumes he teases. As best as he can tell, John doesn't actually care what names they use for anything. He's also been picking up Earth terms and colloquialisms as if by osmosis, almost making it seem as if he's trying his best to make them forget that he's not human, not from Earth and was born at about the time most of the Expedition's ancestors were just starting to figure out farming.

In fact, John's said remarkably little about his people in the month or so they've been here. It's almost as if he's ashamed that the Ancients – Alterans, Lanteans, Ancestors, take your pick – were so much more advanced than pretty much everyone else in the universe. Which is ridiculous, because Rodney's worked with more than a few Asgard in his time and suffice to say people with that amount of technological superiority didn't usually have a word for humble in their language. Except, of course, the Ancients had been more advanced than even the Asgard. They'd built the Stargates for crying out loud. And intergalactic spaceships the size of Manhattan. And basically seeded life in their image throughout two galaxies, if not more.

Maybe that was the problem the fact that Rodney's ancestors were pretty much the lab mice of John's. That is bound to be uncomfortable, if you care about such things.

"Yes, but we live there, so squatter's rights and all." And that's when he notices the hallway beyond is dark, smelling of dust and mould and mildew and most definitely not one of the areas of the city they've been able to explore yet. "Where the hell are we?"

For a moment John looks just as confused as Rodney feels before, "Sorry, I must be more tired than I thought."

Ah. "Your old quarters were down here, weren't they?"

His 'no' surprises Rodney. "My father's are, though."

For a moment Rodney wonders what it must be like to have a parent you would want to go see after a day like this. "Oh. Well, you want to check it out anyway?"

The Major pauses, hand poised over the panel that will take them back to the inhabited parts of the city. If he'd looked tired before he appears positively haggard now, as if all the years he'd spent in stasis were finally catching up with him. "Nothing's likely to have survived."

"Still, worth a look, right? And you said something about him keeping a list of all the ZedPMs. Maybe we could find a copy of it in there."

"Maybe later..." John hedges but then lights start flickering on up and down the hall, though both are still firmly inside the transporter. Frowning, "'Lantis," he says, glancing at the ceiling in the way he does when speaking to the city, "what are you doing?"

Rodney, of course, doesn't hear the response. That honour is seemingly only bestowed on John, and he'll admit that for a full seventy-eight minutes he was jealous but then an article had magically appeared on one of his tablets, drawn from the Ancient database and appended to a note that read:

We Do Like You

in much the same way he'd been alerted to John's existence when they'd first arrived here.

The article had talked of the Ancients building their great city-ships with complex virtual intelligences to aid them in crossing the great voids between galaxies back when their technology was far less advanced than it was now, during a time called The Schisma that none of his queries will reveal anything further about. It had also talked about them keying their technology to a gene they'd engineered into their genome and how, somehow, the two together had had unintended consequences – that, after their city-ships became self-aware, they began responding to specific gene-users differently than others. The ones they favoured were called custodiae. The ones that went and put millions of microscopic machines in their head were pastores, and they were the most beloved at all.

Since there was no way in hell that was happening (he knows it's different but he's read one too many files on the Replicatiors to ever seriously consider it, thank you very much), Rodney's decided it's more than enough to hear Atlantis' song like an unending symphony in the back of his mind. She's the most amazing thing he's ever heard and some nights he's lain in bed just listening to her, grateful and ashamed by turns that he gave up the piano so long ago – grateful because there's no way he could ever hope to capture anything more than the barest glimmer of the wonder that is Atlantis; ashamed because it seems wrong that no one else can hear her music.

Besides, ever since his gene therapy took, John's developed this tendency to talk aloud to the city. He doesn't do it all the time and, when he does, it's always when they're alone, but it helps.

"She says she's not the one doing it."

"Well that's crazy. If it's not her, who? There's no one else here. We're not scheduled to check out this part of the city for- Where are we anyway?" John tells him. "Well, definitely not us then. We're not scheduled to head this way for a couple weeks at least."

"It's not the city either – something on its own separate circuit." With a long-suffering sigh he adds, "It's coming from Father's quarters," and with that he heads down the hall, opening a door midway down it's length.

What they find he doesn't even think John expects.

Or maybe he does because he takes one look at the glowing figure standing in the middle of the room and immediately goes to the nearest couch, collapsing into it in a way that suggests this is one hundred percent normal for the Pegasus galaxy so why not get it over with and see what the man wants?

"It's only an eminentia," John says after a moment, not looking at the slowly rotating figure. "A projection of light and sound."

"A hologram. Of course there's a hologram in your living room. You have transporters, so why not holograms?" At this point, he'd hardly be surprised to find out that Gene Roddenberry had run across an Ancient shortly before conceiving Star Trek. A much more helpful and scientifically-inclined Ancient than John. "This your father, I take it? There is some family resemblance, at least, though I'm surprised to see he doesn't have your hair. That's from your mother's side I presume? He does seem to have your smirk though – yes, that one you're giving me now."

John continues smirking though it seems a bit forced. "Yeah, that's Father."

"Cool." He watches the hologram of John's dad rotate back and forth for a couple of minutes before being compelled to ask, "You going to see what he wants?"

"I suppose I should. 'Lantis?" he glances up at the ceiling. "Any way you can download my translation matrix into the eminentia? Thanks," he adds, tapping his radio. "Elizabeta? Can you come down section 12? McKay and I have found something you'll probably want to see."

Rodney turns away from the hologram and his thoughts on how to adapt the tech into his own holodeck to stare at the major. "Why'd you ask Elizabeth to come down here?"

"'Cause she probably will want to see this."

"Yes, strangely enough I got that part. What I mean is, it's a hologram of your father. Don't you want to, I dunno, listen to it in private?"

John's face darkens. "It's not likely to be that kind of message, Rodney."

He doesn't know what to say to that, so he collapses into the seat next to him and makes a show of pulling up a program to record this on his tablet.

"No matter. Elizabeta says she's in the middle of something and I'm half-asleep already so what do you say we just go ahead and get this over with."

"Major?" he asks, trying to fit whole questions – why would your father leave something like this behind and why is it coming on now and if your relationship with him was that bad, why did you come here in the first place – into one word. He's no idea if he's successful but if the yawn John gives as he leans across him to activate the message is any indication, the Major doesn't have the energy to sit up straight at the moment, let alone to answer any question more complicated than are you asleep?

The projection of John's father stops spinning, instead glancing about the room before catching sight of them sitting on his couch, his son – or the son of the man who'd made the projection – leaning heavily against Rodney's shoulder.

The man in the hologram is dressed much like he expects all Ancients to dress, which is to say in various shades of white with highly visible, highly impractical laces down the back and heavy cloth vambraces that couldn't possibly serve any practical purpose. (The anthropologists have made much of this, as well as the fact that, after John managed to acquire an Expedition uniform of his own, he's continued to wear one of his Ancient bracers. Seeing John evade their questions on the subject is a work of artifice and misdirection he's not seen since his last visit to the Pentagon.) And while he doesn't have John's hair, the eyes are the same and say far more than the raised eyebrow that accompanies his announcement, "Licinus. You're looking terrible."

"Had a run-in with an Iratus bug off-world. There was some delay in removing it."

Rodney can't help but snorting at this because, really, understatement, thy name is John Sheppard, or Licinus, or whatever the hell John wanted to call himself. Either way, the noise draws the hologram's attention and its eyes sharpened perceptively, as if in warning, though warning what to whom he couldn't say. "Who's your friend, Licinus?"

"Doctor Rodney McKay," he answers for himself, "of Earth. Head of the Science and Research Departments, such as they are, on this Expedition. "

The word science seems to mollify the hologram somewhat for he reciprocates: "Ianus Ishachidus Ianitos Rector, Lantean Director of Science... and Licinus' father or, rather, my counterpart was, before the Exodus. How long has it been by the way?"

"Just over ten thousand years."

"Really?" the hologram asks, Rodney all but forgotten. But that's okay, because he's trying to process John's father was quite possibly the basis for the Roman god Janus which, admittedly, isn't that much of a deal after working for the SGC for the last seven years. It's more of the the lab John told me about was the Director of Science's lab and John's father was the Director of Science, which somehow is more shock-inducing. "The cathedra kept you in stasis that long? You barely look like you've aged at all."

"Seemed to last no longer than a dream," John agrees, "but you didn't build an eminentia to ask me about the long-term effects of cathedra stasis. At least, not only, so why all the games with the lights and such?"

"To get your attention, mostly and to make sure the right person got this message. I knew that if the Wraith ever breeched the defences you'd try to destroy Atlantis but I couldn't know if you'd be successful and didn't want the information in this program accessible to just anyone..."

"You can say what you want in front of McKay. I trust him."

"Hmm. Where is this Earth anyway?"

"It's Terra – you know how descendants are about naming things. A couple of them actually have the gene needed to use our tech. I wouldn't be surprised if they're some of your personal descendants. So you see, they're practically family. Now what about this message?"

The hologram actually looks abashed for a moment, mumbling, "Oh. Well. Yes," and very much not denying the accusations. Which, while moderately disturbing, probably explains some of John's awkwardness when it comes to talking about his life before the Expedition found him. It continues, "I assumed you'd come down here eventually and wanted to make sure you'd be able to survive if you woke from the cathedra to find yourself alone – my program contains a list of outposts the Council sent additional potentia before the Exodus as well as a handful of those we hid among our Pegasus descendants. I've also included some designs for what servola you can probably fabricate from the materials we left behind, though I doubt they'll be of much good to you until you solve your energy problem... Don't even bother trying to repair the secondary power systems – they'll never be able to power any significant part of Atlantis and without a live potential you'll not be able to store the energy in any useful manner...

Once in Avalon it was my intention to seek out the Furlings as soon as it was possible to do so without alerting the Council. It was my hope that, with their help, I would be able to find a path that would lead those who remained back to Atlantis, possibly even with a way to defeat the Wraith... but since it has been so long I can only assume I failed."

"You don't know that. The Terrans found us, didn't they?"

Janus' hologram sighs. "Perhaps..." There is silence for a beat. "I know why you stayed. Given the chance, I would have done the same. But... I wish things had worked out differently with us."

It's impossible for Rodney to read the expression on John's face. Normally he'd be the first to admit people are his weak point but that has nothing to do with it this time. This look, it's so intense Rodney's not sure he's ever seen it before on anyone. There might be something in German for the emotion – they tend to have words for the complicated emotions that English lacks - but Rodney wouldn't put money on it. John's, "Me too," is partly filled with familial affection, partly with filial annoyance and mixed with more than a little melancholy, contempt, and frustration for good measure but even knowing this Rodney doesn't think he's captured the emotion properly.

It's quiet, too quiet, after that. The only sound he can hear Atlantis' faint berceuse, and even that's only a whisper in the back of his mind. It's only when John's head dips forward further that he realises the other man has finally lost his battle with exhaustion. He'd laugh, only he doesn't want to wake him so he settles for rolling his eyes at Janus' hologram and easing John off his shoulder.

When he looks up again it's to the unbounded remorse in the hologram's eyes. Janus' face quickly shutters, wiping away all hints of emotion but not quickly enough.

Rodney swallows uncomfortably. "I'll just..."

"Is that device of yours," the hologram interrupts, "capable of interfacing with Lantean equipment?"

"Yes. Of course. Why?"

"I programmed this eminentia to erase itself two hours after activation. It would be best that you download the planetary addresses and servola schematics before then. My flesh-and-blood counterpart would have hated to go through all this trouble for nothing to come of it in the end."

"Ah." He doesn't know whether to be appalled by the paranoia or to applaud it. Either way, he pushes himself off the couch and gets to work, opening a panel on the small pyramidal device on the table that seems to be the hologram projector.

It's not silence that follows but it's close and goes on for long enough that Rodney actually thinks his tampering with the projector has caused Janus' hologram to disappear entirely.

He's just pressed the download button when Janus speaks again, shocking him enough that he nearly drops his tablet. "You're a custodia, aren't you Doctor Rodney McKay?"

"Er, yes?" That's what John called him, anyway and John would know better than anyone. He still didn't quite believe it.

"Then you know he's lying."

That stops Rodney cold. He knows that John's been keeping things from them – about the war, the Ancients, himself – but outright lying? That doesn't seem to be John's style. He's only known him a month but Rodney would be willing to bet his life on that. He's already done so. The whole Expedition has.

But still he has to ask: "About what?"

"Not remembering. Ten thousand years in a cathedra, in constant communication with an urbs-navis with more sensors and scanners and systems most of our descendants can't dare imagine might one day exist? Even if Licinus doesn't consciously realise it, he's bound to remember every moment of it, in excruciating detail."

"How do you know?" You're just a hologram, he doesn't add. Just like Atlantis isn't just a city. They might not be on the same level but there's a level of intelligence to both, even if it's only the illusion thereof. And even if it's true, it's not like it's an important lie. "Seen many causes of ten-thousand-year stasis, have you?"

The look Janus flashes him is the same one John gives the anthropologists when they ask something stupid. "No. But it's changed him. I can tell."

"You can tell?"

"We talked."

"And?" he gestures for him to go on.

"We didn't yell."

"What?"

"We talked for a good ten, fifteen minutes and neither of us raised our voices once. The last time I think that happened he was still a small boy... The solitude must have been crippling."

Blinking, he asked (rather intelligently in his opinion given the way this conversation was progressing), "What?" once more.

But Janus' response was, "Someone comes this way," followed by his hologram blinking out of existence for ever and ever more.

The someone turns out to be Elizabeth, who looks over the scene – Rodney kneeling by the table with the hologram projector, John dead asleep on the white, water-stained couch slightly off to the side – and manages to minimize her response to an amused smirk. "Major Sheppard said there was something he wanted me to see?"

Rodney stands because, really, his knees are going to kill him for that later and rolls his eyes at her. But Janus' words echo in his mind even after he fills her in on the relevant details and they head back to the control room to start deciphering the information they've been given.

He should be excited. There are twenty addresses that might lead them to zero point modules on the list. And as if that weren't enough, designs for servola apparently translated to schematics for robots, specifically robots that could help them repair the more inaccessible parts of the city. He is excited. The whole science department is.

And if Rodney takes a moment during his very important and exciting research to take a blanket down to John, well, that's what friends do. Crippling hypothermia is the last thing anyone needs after having the life sucked out of them by an overgrown bug.

And if he takes more moments everyt few hours to check up on him, well, that's just what friends do too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eminentia - Hologram  
> Emissum - Hologram Projector  
> Filius - Son  
> Ianus Ishachidus Ianitos Rector - Janus, last Lantean Director of Science and John's Father  
> Janus – minor Roman god of beginnings, doorways, and time based off of Ianus Ishachidus  
> Rector - Dean of an Institution  
> Pater - Father  
> Servolum - "Little Slave," ie, Robot


	5. Custos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iohannes and Steve have a lunch date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fourth installment in the Ancient!John 'verse, set between "Suspicion" and "Poisoning the Well"

"Hello, Major Sheppard," the Wraith says when Iohannes enters the detention wing, seemingly unperturbed by the two weeks he's spent as their prisoner. He's not showing any obvious signs of hunger but that's only a matter of time. The Wraith are the universe's ultimate waiting game. His kind had learned that long before Iohannes had been born. "Come to visit me again? Your kind is persistent. I would have thought you'd have given up by now."

"Me? I've got all the time in the world. Now you, on the other hand... How much longer do you think you'll be able to last? A week? A month? A year? Because it's no trouble at all for me to keep you here. Gives my men a chance to get to know their enemy, to see how pathetic they really are."

"You hide your fear poorly, Major."

Iohannes looks at him through the bars, just looks, pouring every ounce of contempt he has for it and its entire race.

He knows he's successful when the Wraith hisses at him, spinning round in the first show of genuine anger he's had since they first locked him up. "Why do you keep me here?" Steve roars. "Even if I told you what you want to know, it would change nothing. You think you've won a victory by my capture? By bringing me here, you've only hastened your own doom."

"Now, now, Steve. No need to get yourself all worked up. Just tell me what I need to know and then, maybe, we can talk about... alleviating... your hunger."

Steve's reply is haughty but far from certain. It's probable he's young, as far as Wraith tribuni are concerned, born well after the Siege had ended. It's more than likely that the only knowledge he has of those he would feed upon are tales told by other, more senior Wraith and his own limited experience dragging them from the holding cells on their ships. "You would never sacrifice one of your own kind." But few people, however noble they might otherwise be, would willingly sacrifice themselves to save another, even for a moment, from the worst fate that's ever been imagined and Steve can't be sure he's not bluffing. That and the fact he can't tell Iohannes is Alteran is just another point towards this; to any Wraith that had lived through the War, the subtle characteristics that distinguish Alterans from their descendants would have been obvious. Something to do with hormones, or so Forcul had told him once, so many years ago.

Iohannes continues to look at him in response, tapping his earwig and telling Sergeant Bates to go ahead and bring it in. Only when they're gone does he sit down at the table they've placed near the containment cell, making sure Steve has a good view of his lunch tray.

"You think this is some sort of torture, human?" Steve snorts as Iohannes picks up the silverware. "Your food is of no interest to me."

For one brief second he closes his eyes. /Now/, he tells Atlantis and, though she disapproves, he can feel her uploading the new translation matrix into his neural nodes. There's a moment where nothing happens, when he'd be hard pressed even open his eyes, his nervous system's experiencing such shock and then there's that click and it's all he can do not to smile at his prisoner.

"Hunger," he says, taking infinite pleasure in the way Steve's eyes widen at his use of the Wraith language, "is so... distasteful, don't you think?"

"How do you know this tongue?"

"What can I say? Just trying to get to know you better, Steve." Iohannes helps himself to the not-rice, bean mixture that's been making up the vast majority of their meals these days. "You know, bridging the gap between our two cultures. And if it has a secondary purpose of gaining military intelligence and helping us find a way to keep your kind from sucking the life out millions of innocent people? Well, let's not say I'm ideologically opposed to that either. 

"You know the drill, Steve. How many of those big hive ships have you got and where are they?"

Steve snarls, "I will tell you nothing."

"Nothing, huh? How about your queen then? What's her name?"

"Irrelevant."

"Is it?" he says lightly. It might've been ten thousand years but the Wraith had hibernated through most of that time, same as him, and some things just didn't change. "You're what? A member of the Alura Confederacy?" A spark of recognition but no dice. "No. You're part of the Rdehi Alliance."

The Wraith roars at this, charging impotently at the walls of his cage. Atlantis rages too, thundering, /The Rdehi destroyed Nebirus and Elorus. They killed our sisters,/ in his mind while the water in ballasts throughout the city suddenly finds itself at a rolling boil.

It's all Iohannes can do to keep up his mask of indifference. Nebirus had been lost long before he was born and he'd never set foot on Elorus but they were urbes-naves all the same. They'd been alive, just as much (if not more so) than their inhabitants. The survivors could (and had, the scarce few hundred of them) evacuate. But the cities had given their lives for their people and nothing of them now remained but memories and rubble.

/I know, carissima,/ he tries to soothe her. /I know./ But this one wasn't around back then. Probably.

/Irrelevant,/ she decides, sending him images of all the possible things that could be done to their prisoner for the crimes of his people. There's no love lost between Iohannes and the Wraith but it's still enough to put him off his lunch, which he pushes to the side before trying a different tactic.

/You're going to scare the Terrans if you keep this up, 'Lantis. You don't want to do that, do you?/ He gets uncomfortable when the Terrans are scared. It's different than he's used to, too loud and brash and brazen, and filled with enough defiance of their circumstances that a puddle jumper could float unassisted in the sea of emotion. Alteran fright was different, couched in soft words and sharp-edged silences, in which a firm voice telling them to stop talking about the problem and DO something about it was as anathema as a serious monograph on the Haeresis, Origin.

/They're funny when they're excited,/ she accedes ruefully, letting the ballast tanks cool. /Loud./

/Very loud,/ he agrees.

/Like children./

/Yes./

/I miss children, pastor./

He can only sigh at this and whisper, /I know, carissima. I know,/ before turning his attention back to Steve, who's finally calming down enough that he might be interested in what Iohannes has to say. The Marine by the door should be happy about that – Private Woodall had started growing twitchy the moment he'd updated his translation matrix and had only grown more and more concerned as the interrogation had progressed.

"You know, it's cute you still think you can escape. That you alone can tear down bars that have held dozens more dangerous than you. That you can dismantle a shield built by those who mastered such things back before your ancestors – anthropoid and humanoid – were anything more than motes in a geneticist's eye. That, even if you could escape, you'd not even make it out of this room before you were shot full of so much lead that it would be easier to smelt you down than burn your corpse after we were done."

"Your words-" Steve begins.

"-are of no consequence, yadda yadda yadda," Iohannes finishes, taking another look at his lunch before deciding, no, it just wasn't worth it. "I've heard it all before. But tell me this, Steve: say you're right. Say that the others of your kind do find us. You think it'll be to rescue you? No, they'll see you here, alive, and they'll think you've betrayed them to stay alive for this long, won't they Steve? 

"And even if they aren't completely sure, the Rdehi Alliance is quite large, isn't it Steve? Your queen is just one among many – and probably a junior one at that, if they're making her send her tribuni, even one as junior as you, out on recon missions. Do you think they've even noticed your absence, Steve? After all, times are tight and you are just another... hand... to feed."

The Wraith's attempt at bluster would be less pathetic if it didn't mean he probably knows less than nothing about anything of strategic importance. If it wasn't for the fact all his knowledge on the Wraith was ten thousand years old, Iohannes would have just shot him now and spared himself the trouble. As it is all he gets is a thundered, "Ironfeather would never-" before Steve catches his slip and lets loose another impotent roar.

Iohannes waits a moment, then, "They'll probably just kill you, you know, just to be on the safe side, to send a message to other, more important, potential traitors in their midsts." Another pause, another beat, "Maybe if we're really lucky, the Primary will have Ironfeather killed for allowing one such as you to live for as long as you have."

Steve's a lot more forthcoming after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Alura Confederacy - The second largest Wraith fraction, at about 15 hives  
> Carissima - Dearest, Darling, or Beloved  
> Custos - Jailer/Warden  
> The Rdehi Alliance - The largest Wraith faction, at about 18 hives


	6. Amici et Amatores

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a scientific fact that, the smaller the population, the more rumours there are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #5 in the Ancient!John 'verse, set before/during/after "Underground"

"Maybe it's just me but isn't the military commander of Atlantis supposed to spend his time, oh, I dunno, commanding the military? And not, say, wandering around the city like somebody's lost dog?"

"What's a dog?" John asks, sounding more amused than anything else from his perch on the edge of one of the nearby tables.

"An annoyingly stupid Earth animal that's been known to follow its master across province lines looking for him when he tries to abandon it."

"Ah." John idly kicks a leg back and forth, looking all of one third his age despite the black-on-grey uniform he's managed to dredge up from somewhere. "What's a province?"

Rodney gives him his best you can't possibly be this stupid look. John's been earning a lot of those lately, particularly as he seems to have chosen Rodney to be his personal encyclopaedia for all things relating to the Milky Way – or as he calls it, Avalon, leading him to suspect an alien hand in British mythology as it was with most other legends on Earth. "An administrative territory," he explains anyway, with perhaps less venom than he'd use if he'd caught one of his minions asking such a stupid question, "usually directly below the national-level, used by Canada and several other countries, many of which used to be European colonies and analogous to the American state. And we've already had the discussion about Earth countries so don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about."

This earns him one of John's best shit-eating grins. "Why would I do that?"

"Because you're infuriating and take perverse pleasure in harassing me while I'm trying to work."

A snort comes from one of the workspaces near the door – the corner of the lab Rodney's let Radek use whenever he pops by, mostly because it's either let him use it or be dragged down to the communal one every time the Czech wants to show him something. He'd almost forgotten Radek was there and spares a moment to glare at him too, but only a moment. Rodney's pretty sure the device he's working on is the Ancient version of an electron microscope. If he can just readjust the lenses, recalibrate the voltage and figure out how he's suppose to view the images. If he's right, it's a delicate piece of equipment that deserves his full attention. If he's wrong, it's even more deserving of his attention, even if John claims it's unlikely to explode, whatever it may be.

"You find me infuriating?"

"That is what I said – and don't play with that. You don't know what that is." And it's true too. John might be an Ancient but he freely admits that it is war, not science, that he knows the most about. What little of his concentration isn't on the possible-microscope is on making sure John doesn't break something potentially important.

"Yes I do."

The electron microscope is forgotten. "You do?"

"Yeah. It's a – well, I dunno what you'd call it but we called it an ars. It works rather like Father's hologram, only without a complex intellegentia tacitae. The emissum in this one burnt out ages ago." John taps a control on its side  
idly, causing the apex of the pyramidal device to retract but nothing more. "Father always meant to fix it for me but he was always getting distracted by some new project or some new amator. I don't suppose it really matters any more but you could probably slot the data crystals in this one into the emissum in Father's quarters and get it to play. Your anthropologists might get a kick out of it; if I remember correctly, it's basic Alteran history, from the Schisma to the Wraith War. Just kid stuff but it might get them off my case, for a while at least."

"You could always just talk to them and save us all the trouble."

He slides off the table, grinning at this last, and crosses the room in two long strides. "Yeah, not gonna happen."

Rolling his eyes, "Fine, I'll see what I can do. But if you find yourself cornered in a dark hallway by Corrigan and Lazos one night, forced at gunpoint to talk about Ancient pottery or whatever the hell else it is anthropologists find interesting, don't say I didn't warn you."

This, oddly enough, earns him the biggest smile he's yet seen from the Major as well as, briefly a hand on his shoulder. "Well, love to stay and chat, but I promised Carson a sextarius of blood in exchange for telling Elizabeta I'm playing well with others."

And with that, John is gone.

After a moment Radek speaks up. "You know, I think John must be very much smarter than he wants us to believe."

"Of course he is; no one as stupid as he pretends to be could have managed to make it past the age of twelve, even if he is an Ancient."

"No. Smarter as in devious. As if this all is set-up and he is subtly manipulating us towards some secret end that will only benefit Ancients."

"Doubtful."

"Oh, really?"

"Have you met John?" Rodney asks, half amused, half aghast. "Any other Ancient, yeah, sure, I'd be willing to believe they were running some secret plot behind our backs or whatever other ideas your Cold War-fuelled bouts of paranoia have given you. But this is John. Devious is too much work for him."

"Maybe this is only what he wants us to think."

"We've been here five months, Zelenka. I think someone besides you would have realized by now if John was some sort of Ancient supervillain bent on galactic domination."

Radek ignores this last bit, looking over his glasses at him. "Exactly. We've been here five months and this, this ars device is the first thing he's mentioned about his past. Makes you wonder if he was left behind on purpose by other Ancients."

"I think he just doesn't like to talk about it. From what little I've been able to gather, he and his dad didn't get on all that much and I don't think his mom was in the picture at all. Other than that, it pretty much seems his life story was: fight the Wraith, sleep, fight the Wraith, go into stasis for a couple thousand years, meet some Earthlings, and, oh yes, fight the Wraith. Who cares about the rest so long as he's willing to help us out?"

"I take it back," Radek says, shaking his head. "He's not evil, he's just interested. Bůh ví proč."

Rodney, by this point, is starting to secretly regret ever allowing anyone into his workspace, particularly Zelenka. Despite knowing he'll regret it he asks, "Interested? Interested in what?"

"For such smart man, you can be real idiot sometimes. Interested in you."

Rodney blinks once.

Then again, twice more.

Then he bursts out laughing. Because, seriously. Just, seriously, it's probably the funniest thing he's heard in any galaxy. Because people like Sheppard are not, as a rule, interested in people like him and, even if by some bizarre combination of inebriation and head trauma they were, Rodney would have noticed. "Looks like some of the plants the botanists brought back from the mainland must have psychotropic qualities because really, Zelenka, if you actually think that you're a bigger idiot than Kavanagh."

"Na každém šprochu pravdy trochu. I am not the only one who thinks so."

"Then you're all idiots. Is it so hard to believe that someone could be friends with me that you have to make up fantastical stories to explain it?"

"Usually, no. In this case, yes."

Crossing his arms, "Fine then. This I've got to hear."

"Well, I was speaking with Elizabeth the other day and she was saying that, besides herself and Doctor Beckett, you are the only one Major Sheppard spends any real time with. And that everything they know about his past they've learned second-hand from you. And maybe I would think this is just you being able to spot these things better than us but, no, I've seen it for myself, with my own eyes, just now." He's now gesturing widely, pencil in hand, clearly enthused and not a little amused by the topic at hand. "You ask, he tells. He either is very good friend or interested in being more than friends. With that hair, it is probably the latter."

"Obviously I've not given you enough work if you've time to find so-called evidence for your delusions," because, really, what other response is there to something like that? Goodness knows he spends enough time with the Major. If there was something to notice, as Zelenka seems to think, Rodney would have noticed himself long before now. And since he hasn't, there's obviously not. Q. E. D. "In fact, if you've got that much time on your hands, why don't you go help what's-his-name – the Dutch civil engineer with the lisp, de Boar or-"

"De Boor," Zelenka offers.

"Yes. That one. Why don't you go help him with the problem with the desalination tanks?"  
Radek rolls his eyes but leaves anyway, which is all that really matters in the end.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The thing is, Zelenka is, after a sort, the longest friendship Rodney's ever had.

They'd known each other casually when they'd both been engineering grad students at Stanford. Radek had been first-year Electrical at the time, fresh off the boat from the Czechoslovakia or whatever the hell they called it in those final days of the Cold War, and Rodney last-year Mechanical.

They'd been twenty-four and twenty-three respectively – not the youngest in the group, though close – but they were the only ones with other doctorates already. Even in Palo Alto's rather unique educational community this had set them somewhat apart and they had formed a loose acquaintanceship from this that rarely amounted to more than a few fevered discussions in the office they shared with three other TAs about quantum mechanics and changes they would have made to the R-36 Mark II the USSR had recently unveiled – both of which usually had earned them harsh looks from said fellow TAs and more frightened ones from the students they were supposed to be helping.

After he graduated Rodney didn't give Zelenka another thought until he ran across him at the Ancient Outpost in Antarctica thirteen years later. Radek remembered him, of course. Rodney only remembered that they'd been at Stanford together and that the Czech had been wrong, wrong, wrong about Morris-Thorne wormholes after all.

He supposes you could call that friendship. Radek, for God only knows what reason, does.

Which probably means Rodney should give more credence to his opinions than he does but, really, dictatorship seems like it would be too much work for John. As does the idea of him trying to have a romantic relationship with anyone on Atlantis, particularly with Rodney himself – and this is supposing that John is even anything other than a 0 on the Kinsey scale or whatever the Ancient equivalent might be.

But, seriously, Rodney's friends with Carson and no one makes any insinuations about them (or that the Scotsman is trying to take over anything, particularly the galaxy). And sure, while he might spend more time these days with John it's only because Carson's so busy trying to manufacture that retrovirus, the one that will de-Wraith the Wraith, or some other voodoo along those lines. It's not like he's forgotten him or anything. Whatever else, Carson's still the first real friend Rodney's ever had; the first person he liked for no reason he could readily name and vice versa. He hadn't even need John's nudge to drag the doctor to their semi-weekly movie night after the disaster with the Hoffan drug because that's the sort of things friends do to try to keep each other from dwelling on the dead and they are friends. Hell, he has more friends now than he's ever had in his life.

Still, John seems to be the only one that anyone's insinuating anything about.

Maybe that's just the sort of thing people on small bases do; if they're not having sex themselves then they're creating rumours about other people's sex lives. It was true enough in Siberia and Kuybyshev had had a population of two hundred. Atlantis' population is all of eighty-six, which should inversely affect the sheer number of rumours.

Though it is somewhat pathetic to learn that, even in rumours, Elizabeth and Teyla are out of his league. Even if he usually does go for guys. Not that anyone on Atlantis knows this, of course – though Zelenka had been at Stanford for his three-week thing with Aaron, one of the less painfully stupid students in his four hundred level class back when it was still scandalous to be openly anything other than a 0, let alone a 4. So maybe they do. If that's the case, he supposes he should be flattered that the rumours are openly pairing him with the hottest guy in the city (because no matter how ridiculous the idea is, as they are just friends, he'd have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to have noticed that, thank you very much.)

Still, ridiculous or not, the idea seems to have lodged itself in his brain like some crappy pop song and despite himself Rodney finds himself starting to catalogue the evidence.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And the evidence is this:

They've taken over a room in one of the unused sections of the city for their movie nights. They've liberated a few of the more comfortable pieces of furniture in the city for it as well as one of the paper-thin computer screens from an unused lab. With Atlantis' help it's been wired for surround sound and soundproofed using a noise-cancelling device John says the Ancients used to use in their nurseries. No one else knows about it except for Carson, who was so out of it that night he probably couldn't find his way back if he tried, and Atlantis herself. Once a week or so, after a bad mission or a bad day or whenever they just need some good, old-fashioned escapism, they'll meet up and watch movies until they can't keep their eyes open any longer.

He's still not quite sure how it started, only that it had moved to its current location after they'd determined Rodney's quarters to be quite too small for two grown men to sprawl effectively. He's pretty sure it had something to do with teaching John about Earth culture and that Teyla and Elizabeth and Ford and Carson had joined them for those first few nights. But then John had said something about real space battles not being as exciting as whatever they'd been watching at the time and next thing they knew it was just the two of them working their way through what Star Trek the various members of the Expedition had brought along.

In short, it really is just a buddy thing, without any sexual undertones at all. The only reason they're so secretive about it is because they're the heads of the military and science contingents, respectively, of the city. Their lives are busy enough as it is and they don't want to be surrounded by minions during the rare times they're able to take to relax. But Rodney can see how a lesser mind might see it as something else, particularly the nights when they fall asleep on the couch because they're just too tired to drag themselves across the city to their own beds.

Not that anyone besides the two of them know the details. So, from the outside, he can see how it might look like they occasionally slip away for hours at a time to have sex.

Again, not that it really fits, considering Zelenka had said interested and not no wonder you two are together or some other churlish turn of phrase. But it's evidence none the less.

Then there's the fact they almost always eat dinner together. Rodney's not decided if this is because John's still secretly bewildered by Earth food after all this time or because it's the best way to keep the anthropologists from bothering him but it is what it is. Still, it's something that Zelenka and the other sheep can interpret as interest, though it's not like they sit there and, oh, he doesn't know, act like fourteen year old girls or something.

No, they talk about Atlantis (with John occasionally playing go-between for the city herself) or their most recent movie night (which involves less explaining Earth culture to John and more arguing over who is best superhero/supervillain/sidekick/et cetera than it once did) or their next mission (though this mostly involves discussing, if it is on Janus' list, the likelihood of them actually finding a ZedPM or, if it isn't, the chances of the natives actually being willing to trade with them so they could get back to the business of finding ZedPMs). Sometimes they even talk about themselves (just enough for John to know Jeannie exists and for Rodney to know that John had had better relationships with his father's lovers than he had with his father himself) but that's a rare thing, happening only incidentally as it comes up in conversation.

Rodney figures that if John actually is interested there'd be a lot more of latter and less of the former but since it's not as if the rumourmongers actually listen to their conversations, only see them have them, he supposes it's an understandable mistake. A moronic, easily corrected mistake but an understandable one nonetheless given the relative IQs of the idiots the SGC has the gall to call their best and brightest.

Then add that to the fact that, well, he and John do spend a lot of their time together, what with their jobs being what they are and Radek's interpretation of the evidence becomes almost plausible. Almost, but still grossly wrong, rather like Zelenka's idea about Morris-Thorne wormholes.

Rodney makes sure to tell him this at the next opportunity.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That should have been the end of it.

But then they meet the Genii.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is sitting inside one of the Genii's chemistry labs, hoping that John will return soon with the C4, that he comes to the realization that their current predicament is all his fault. If he'd just been focusing more on the readings the life signs detector was giving him and less intent on goading John about his lack of navigational skills he'd have realized Amish World wasn't so Amish before they were captured.

Five point three seconds later he realizes that, not only is this all his fault, it's such a massive screw-up that John's going to have no choice but to remove him from their gate team because, obviously, if he can't realize that Amish World isn't quite as Amish as it looks until they've found the secret underground bunker, what good is he? Particularly when he can't keep his mouth shut around the pseudo-Nazi natives about how to build atomic bombs.

Yes, it's all but inevitable that he'll be kicked off the team and he and John won't have as much of a reason to hang out any more because, really, the only time Atlantis' military commander and head of science actually need to talk to each other face-to-face are at the weekly senior staff meetings, if even that.

It also means John's likely to stop hanging around the lab so much because he'll not have the ready excuse of needing to follow up on something from one of their missions to fall back on because, for all John is an infuriating alien who has to be no less than ten times smarter than he pretends to be, he doesn't do anything without having a ready-made out just in case things go south. He probably already has an excuse ready for an occasion like this, an argument couched in phrases like for the good of Atlantis and for your own safety prepared. Because John's nowhere near as impulsive as he likes to seem.

They'll probably stop having movie night after a while too. Not right away but slowly, after a few months have gone by, when they both finally realize they've nothing in common any more.

For some reason this thought in particular causes something to clench in Rodney's stomach. It's not that he's particularly attached to their movie nights – he's seen it all before, dozens of times over and sometimes having to explain the finer points of Earth culture can be trying as anything at times – or even being bothered every five minutes while he's trying to work on something, it's just that he's grown accustomed to John in his life. John's...

He's John. He's intelligent and interesting and capable and believes in him and loves Atlantis and loves life and makes his life so much better than before. He values life on a level that borders on devout but won't hesitate to kill if that's what it takes to protect his people. He can turn the charm on most anyone but seems to genuinely like only a few (and it's only those few who ever suspect it's not all genuine). He's a walking contradiction who's somehow managed to trick most the Expedition to thinking he's more normal, more ordinary than he could ever be.

He's a bit like the sun, actually; bright and deadly and there for the rest of them to circle about, even if it takes them a while to figure out that's what they're doing.

And it's at that moment, inside a Genii lab where he was being held hostage in exchange for bomb-making materials and knowledge, that Rodney realizes that he might just be in love with John Sheppard.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Huh.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zelenka's still wrong though because, despite his own attraction, there's no evidence that John is interested in him that way (to use another of the Czech's churlish turns of phrase).

He'd point this out to Radek if it didn't necessitate telling the bastard what he was half-right about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bůh ví proč - "God knows why." (Czeck)  
> Na každém šprochu pravdy trochu. - proverb "Every statement contains a kernel of truth." (Czeck)  
> Ars - Textbook  
> Intellegentia Artificialis - AI  
> Intellegentia Tacitae - VI


	7. Liberator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When it happens, this is how it happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #6 in the Ancient!John 'verse, set during/after "The Eye"

When it happens, this is how it happens:

Iohannes has just shot Kolya twice in the shoulder, forcing him to drop Doctor Weir as a human shield before he falls through the open wormhole. It's not likely to kill him, not given the probable state of Genii medicine but it should put his gun-arm out of commission for a couple months. And that has to count as something at this late hour, with the storm raging all around them and the better part of a dozen dead bodies scattered throughout Atlantis.

Elizabeta is struggling to her feet, looking like she's still not entirely certain of what's just happened. Her voice is weaker than Iohannes has ever heard it and she's giving him The Look – the one descendants get when they first encounter his people and think them gods. He's never seen that look on Elizabeta before; it makes him uncomfortable in a way quite different from the chill setting in from his rain-soaked clothes and the ache starting in his over-taxed muscles.

Still, he runs up to her and asks if she's okay, (/Of course she's not,/ Atlantis huffs and so, dutifully, he asks how she is too. She ignores his question in favour of reminding him that not only are three more levels of the East Pier under water but there's the minor matter of a tsunami heading her way that she'd like taken care of before some of her more delicate towers snap at the base and crush what few organic inhabitants remain within her walls into several tiny, gooey bits.)

"No," she manages, looking faint.

"You will be."

She looks at him like he's mad but maybe he is. Then again, with all the emotions that are surely running wild beneath her skin, the very idea of ever getting over her first hostage situation has to seem like madness. But in time it'll pass. She'll probably even get used to it. After all, in a galaxy filled with Wraith, a single attempted takeover of Atlantis by a race of uppity descendants who think atomic bombs could destroy all their enemies is probably the least of things she'll see if she remains in the city for long.

But still, he has more important things to worry about than the mental health of one Terran woman, even if she is the praefecta.

"Come on," he says, grabbing her wrist and tugging her up the stairs. He drops her hand halfway up when he realizes that the inscriptions on the steps aren't even glowing underneath his feet and picks up his pace, never having known them not to react to his presence, even in the deepest parts of the Siege.

When he gets there, the first thing he notices is Lieutenant Ford yelling, "Wait! What are you doing?" at Rodney-

-who's hunched over the far console and typing furiously away at one of his tablets. He's just as soaked as the rest of them but it's obvious, even from across the darkened room, that what's soaking his right sleeve is blood, not water and it causes something to break in Iohannes.

As McKay answers Ford, not even bothering to look up, Iohannes crosses the room in a handful of steps, coming to a halt so close to the scientist that when he finishes his, "You got something else in mind?" comes out more uncertain than haughty. Not afraid or startled but decidedly uneasy, as if they were teetering on the edge of something forbidden that neither of them could name but both knew they shouldn't cross.

The, "John," that follows is scarcely more than a whisper, soft and reverent and little sad. Oh, he knows that they're all of three minutes away from a tsunami that, if it doesn't destroy Atlantis entirely, will certainly do it's best trying to, but all he can concentrate on a the moment is Rodney.

Rodney, who has somehow managed to find a way to save the city and trick the Genii all at once.

Who is bleeding quite profusely and paler than he ought to be.

Who Iohannes thinks he's been in love with since the moment he first saw him, a light in his eyes so curious and so alive that, even from his hospital bed, he was drawn like a moth to a flame.

Who Iohannes knows he's been in love with ever since day ninety-seven of this new life of his, when he'd woken from a doze in the middle of one of their movie nights with his head resting on Rodney's thigh, Rodney's fingers absent-mindedly carding through his hair and the thought this is the way I want to spend the rest of my life making its way across his sleep-addled mind.

Who is looking at him with such openness that, for a moment, Iohannes thinks he can see everything he's feeling now reflected back in them.

Before he can think better of it his hands fly to Rodney's shoulders, then up briefly to cup his face before running down his arms, probing for injuries he cannot see. He must be saying something, though he'll be damned if he knows what, because Rodney's whispering again, telling him over and over again, "I'm alright. I'll be alright," before what he's saying sinks in. Rodney's fine. He'll be okay. The only way he'll die right now is if their plan doesn't work and it will never work if he doesn't stop wasting their precious time and let McKay get on with saving the day.

Still, even knowing he should step back, Iohannes can't. He'd thought... He'd thought... He lets his forehead rest against Rodney's for a moment (it's all he'll allow himself) before pulling back and asking, "The shields?"

"I just need to raise them but the tracking system's down and Teyla and Beckett are still out there."

He looks around, surprised to see neither had slipped into the room while he was so distracted.

/They're on their way,/ Atlantis informs him without needing to be asked. /They'll be in the Control Room in twenty-three seconds. The tsunami will arrive ninety-eight seconds after that. Tell your custodia to be quick about it when he raises the shields; we've already been damaged more than we would like./

/Rodney's not my custodia,/ he says to the city while telling McKay to, "Go ahead and raise the shields, Teyla and Carson will be here in a moment."

/What do you call it then?/

Iohannes doesn't know but he certainly isn't going to talk to her about it. She calls all those she loves custodiae and, despite the fact she's surely had organic relationships explained to her more than once over her millennia, she doesn't truly understand what it is. He doesn't even understand what this is. He'd seen Father go through amatores like other people go through clothes, never keeping any one lover for longer than a few months though there were always a few, Forcul foremost amongst them, whom he'd always go back to. And whatever Father might have felt for them, he doesn't think it's anything like what he feels for Rodney now because the very idea of ever leaving him, of losing him, is enough to make his heart stop.

But maybe that's what Father thought each time, for each and every one of the men and women who'd trotted through his bedroom door. Maybe Father had loved them all and it had just never worked out each and every time.

Iohannes really, really wants this – whatever this is – to work out.

If he can just get it to start to begin with, though he has a sneaking feeling he's just shown his hand in that.

He's happily distracted when he feels the shield rise. The crash of the waves against it is a different feeling than that of a Wraith bombardment but similar enough that it forcibly pushes all other thoughts out of his head. He is, after all, the pastor Atlantis and he has a job to do. Someone has to keep an eye on all the systems the Terrans' rather limited computers cannot, and if he just closes his eyes...

Iohannes lets his mind be overwhelmed shield diagnostics and tower integrity projections and tentative repair schedules for the flooded lower levels, and it's all so familiar that it's almost as if he never left the cathedra, as if Rodney and the Terrans and Atlantis' rising from the depths was nothing more than a dream created by a lonely and forsaken mind to stave off the encroaching darkness. In a way it's more believable than the idea that he could survive in the cathedra for ten thousand years and hardly age at all, or that he mind find companionship – and possibly even love – in the descendants who have discovered his city and he lets himself fall, deeper and deeper, until all he knows is the city, her systems and her shields and the endless stream of data and life that is Atlantis.

It's almost twelve hours later before he can pull himself out of Atlantis' mainframe, her systems desperate for a familiar hand to monitor them as they struggled to protect the city from the storm. It's another twelve hours after that before all the members of the Expedition are back in the city and the Athosians are back on the mainland. Only then is Iohannes able to return to his quarters and collapse because, well, it's been a stressful few days and, well, he's never been that good at moderating his own internal biochemistry and all the other nonsense the close-to-Ascension members of his race had been able to do with ease and so he's just as in need of sleep as the Terrans. So it's a surprise when there's a knock at his door right as he's about to climb into bed with the intention of not leaving it for several days.

It's even more of a surprise when he sees Rodney on the other side of it, particularly given the fact that he's had to have had even less sleep than Iohannes and worked at least twice as hard.

"Hey buddy," he says, letting the other man in before collapsing, boneless, on his bed. "What's up?"

Rodney says nothing for a long moment and it's not until Iohannes (with considerable effort) sits up does he give any indication of actually planning to. At long last, "I suppose this is the part where we talk."

"Talk? About what?"

"Earlier."

Iohannes frowns. "I'm not mad or anything if that's what you're thinking," gesturing towards the bandage covering most of Rodney's right arm. "First rule of being a hostage, do your best to stay alive. Sometimes telling them what they want to hear is part of that."

But Rodney shakes his head and says, rather cryptically in Iohannes opinion, "Not that, the other thing."

"Okay..." He thinks for a moment because, really, he's that tired and parsing Terran innuendo is a little more work than he's capable of handling at the moment.

/He means your little freak-out,/ Atlantis offers helpfully after the moment has dragged on rather longer than is probably good and Rodney's face is starting to shutter in a way that's clearly meant to convey no emotion whatsoever but instead somehow manages to look angry and embarrassed and not a little put out. It's not at all like his normal flustered look and Iohannes hates the idea that anything could make the scientist look like this and hates himself more because he has the sneaking suspicion he's behind this current one.

/Oh,/ he says. /Stay out of this./ And then aloud, because Rodney's turning to leave and now that Iohannes has some vague idea what he's on about, he really doesn't want him to go. "Oh. What's there to talk about?"

"I just thought- You know what, never mind, it was ridiculous. I should have known it didn't mean-"

With energy Iohannes didn't know he had he rises to his feet and grabs Rodney's arm before he can make it to the door. "No. You were right. I just don't see what there is to talk about. I mean," he makes a face, "I'm not good with feelings or anything but I like you, you like me and we're both adults. Why can we just try this and see where it goes from here without talking it to death?"

Or, at least, that's what he's planning on saying but he gets about as far as I like before Rodney's mouth is on his and it's almost nothing like he'd imagined kissing Rodney would be like but so much better that it doesn't matter that they've not talked, like Rodney wanted to, or that they really probably should, however little Iohannes might actually want to, or that they're both exhausted and strung out on adrenaline, or really anything else at all because it's perfect. 

And really, everything else can wait for morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liberator – Saviour


	8. Fida

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth knows full well all her arguements are futile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #6.5 in the Ancient!John 'verse, set during/after "The Storm"/"The Eye"

Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first time she hears about the Ancients, Elizabeth thinks she's dreaming. Their race seemed to be everything she'd ever worked for: a people who knew neither war nor poverty, who had conquered only hunger and sickness. That they had traveled the stars was just an added bonus and that they'd left behind a way for them to do the same the true dream, one probably born out of too many hours of watching late-night Star Trek marathons during her college years. (Never let it be said she isn't as big of a science fiction junkie as the rest of the Expedition; the only difference is, where the others got a bunch of science and to boldly go stuff out of it, she'd taken away the idea of an United Earth and a Federation of Planets.)

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep;

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And when she firsts steps into Atlantis? It's love at first sight. She's never been anywhere so beautiful, so amazing, so full of knowledge and culture and history.  
And then Rodney finds a real, live Ancient and it's as if her prayers have all been answered.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, hear us when we cry to 

Thee, For those in peril on the sea!

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But almost immediately things start to go wrong.  
She can't blame Lieutenant Ford for bringing the Athosians to Atlantis, not really. She can't blame John for going after Colonel Sumner and the others either but the Wraith are worse than the Goa'uld and, God help her, she feels she's been betrayed when she learns how the Ancients refused at first to fight them and then, when they realized they couldn't win, ran away. They're supposed to be perfect, the Ancients; the bastions of civilization in a universe otherwise filled with terrible, horrific things. They're supposed to look upon their descendants, see them suffering and help them. They're not supposed to play God with their lives and turn their backs on the people who, in one form or another, they had given life to.  
Elizabeth knows full well her arguments are futile. She's likened the Ancients to God and while there's still the small matter of life on Earth having been seeded by them to contend with, they're not actually gods. They are, in fact, human, more or less. And for all their millions of years of evolution, they're just as fallible.  
John is not anything like she expected either. Forget genetics, he's too human. Before they've been there five months he's more cognisant with Earth pop culture than she is and has developed something of a California beach-comber accent, though Rodney alone might know how. And while he might be the least military of any military man she's ever met, he's still a solider. His solution to most issues is, as Rodney might put it, to shoot them and/or offer them C-4.  
She's never been happy about that until now.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Most Holy Spirit, who didst brood

Upon the chaos dark and rude,

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

John's voice on the radio might be the best thing she's ever heard. If anyone can take care of the final grounding station and release them before it's too late to matter, it's John, who knows Atlantis like no one else and has no qualms about doing what it takes to protect her. Normally such thoughts kept Elizabeth up at night wondering if maybe Doctor Zelenka was right and he had goals beyond merely seeing Atlantis restored to her former glory, but now...  
But now...  
"This city," she tries to reason with Kolya, "was designed to be inhabited by the Ancients and their direct descendants." John has made that more than clear, time and time again. "It simply will not work otherwise."  
"And you? You claim to be descended from the Ancestors?" the Genii commander asks in a tone she cannot read but expects that, if she could, she would not like.  
"No, but many of my team are and with the Wraith waking, soon this galaxy will be embroiled in a war the likes of which our generations have never seen."  
"A war that you expedited."  
Elizabeth cannot argue with him there. But as John had told her that first day, the Wraith were coming to Atlantis. They were coming everywhere. It would only be a matter of time. "Disagreements like ours will no longer matter. The only thing of consequence will be how prepared we are and what defences we are able to mount. Now, this city holds many secrets which may help us win that war – but only if my team is here to discover them. So fine, take whatever you need for your people. But if you don't leave this city you're only hurting yourselves in the long run."  
"You believe," he snorts, anger and disbelief colouring his words, "that your people – who are not even of this galaxy – are closer to the Ancestors than we are? Your arrogance is astounding-"  
"No," she cuts in. "Yours is. You think I'm lying to you, that I'm just passing along some sort of cultural belief? Fine. Just go out there and try to use the equipment. It doesn't matter what; the fact is that it simply will not work for anyone other than us. So go ahead and kill us. It's not going to help you any when the Wraith get here and you can't even turn on a light switch!"  
Kolya roars at that, suddenly standing and looming over the desk like he's prepared to shoot her right there if she doesn't shut her mouth. "We will take this city. We will mount a defence. And we will win – with or without your help, Doctor Weir."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

And bit its angry tumult cease, 

and give, for wild confusion, peace;

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Much later, after everyone's back in the city and caught up on sleep, they're sitting in the conference room in uncomfortable silence. Oh, Elizabeth's glad to be alive but it's cost at least sixty men their lives. It doesn't matter that most of them were Genii who would sooner kill her than anything else, the fact remains that they're still dead. The thing is John's just sitting there, looking much like he's always done, like killing so many single-handedly is nothing and she just can't stand it any longer.  
Before she can say anything, John speaks up. "You did what you had to do."  
She's not sure if he's talking to Rodney, who's in the chair to her left, or her, or everyone in the room.  
"The most important thing about hostage situations is that you do what it takes to survive. Sometimes that means telling your captors what they want to hear."  
John probably means it in good faith. He's the only one with experience in this sort of thing (or so they guess; she's never learned more from him than that he is the pastor Atlantis and had been the second-in-command of the Lantean Guard before the others fled to Earth. What little else she knows is second-hand from Rodney and even then she's not sure how much of it is supposition) and it'll probably come in handy at some point in the future.  
But, God, half of her thinks they could have avoided the whole thing if John had just been upfront about being an Ancient in the first place with the Genii. Instead he'd just kept telling them that Atlantis was his city without any rhyme or reason as to why, so it seemed that it was up for the taking by whomever had the biggest guns. And the rest of her knows it could have been avoided if only John hadn't so blithely offered them C-4 as if it were nothing. And maybe to him it was nothing but it's still his fault, and he's still killed over sixty people, and she's lost the first two people under her command, and-  
"It may not seem like it now but I promise you it'll be fine."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, 

For those in peril on the sea!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fida - Faith or Believer


	9. Heros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atlantis has seen many wars, but none have asked for a price such as this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #7 in the Ancient!John 'verse, set during "Letters from Pegasus" and "The Seige," Parts I & II

"Well, we knew they were coming. At least now we know when."

"That's something," John agrees, nodding vaguely as he pokes about on the laptop they've set up for him. Under any other circumstances it would be hilarious how a being from such an advanced species could barely peck out a sentence on something as simple as a laptop computer but right now it kind of says everything about their current situation. Even John's usual complaint of this thing barely counts as a computer had failed to bring a smile to Rodney's face.

As it is, Rodney knows he sounds vaguely shrill when he repeats, "That's something!"

"It means there's still time, Rodney," John sighs, sounding very tired, as if he's sat through a hundred of these meetings before. Which, thinking about it, he probably has, given what they know of his position in the Ancients' military before the others Ascended or left for Earth. "There's no reason to panic. Yet."

"Where there is time, there is hope," Teyla adds sagely and Rodney has to fight the urge to roll his eyes at her. Right now they need aphorisms like they need, well, the Wraith. He knows the Athosian means well, he honestly does, there's just something about her that makes Rodney want to tear the hair from his head every time he talks to her. At least she's given up on her Ancestor-worship since she started beating John up with sticks, which is some sort of progress he supposes.

"Agreed," Elizabeth says. "Recommendations?"

"Other than panic?"

"Other than panic, yes."

"I realize this might not be cool," Ford suggests cautiously, "but we should consider M7G-677."

"As a possible evacuation site?"

"No, ma'am. I'm suggesting we take their ZPM."

Elizabeth looks aghast and only grows more so when she turns to John, who looks vaguely contemplative. So, slightly shrill herself, she asks, "You want us to take the only means of protection from a planet populated mostly by children?"

"He raises a valid point," Rodney interrupts before her voice can go any higher and they discover if Lantea has any native species of aquatic dogs. "We've already established that their ZedPM is nearly depleted but it could be of some limited use to us."

"You asked for suggestions."

"It is a matter of survival," John says grim-faced, looking in the Lieutenant's general direction but clearly not seeing him. He blinks, then more soberly turns towards Rodney. "But you've said it yourself; their potentia is nearly depleted. If I remember the numbers correctly you said it would hardly run the shields for an hour, less so when we're actually under barrage. Besides, 'Lantis tells me that there are only forty-seven fuci in the tubes-"

"Fuci?"

John gestures at Rodney who will apparently forever be known as his personal Ancient-to-Terran translation device. So he answers, "He means the drones, like the ones we found at the Antarctic Outpost."

"How much damage will forty-seven do?"

"If we're lucky? They'll take out one or two hive ships."

"I like the sound of that," Ford all but whistles. Hell, even Carson, who looks like they're five minutes from the second coming, perks up at that.

"The darts will most likely try to intercept any drones we can launch before they can hit the hive ships, though," John explains, waving off their concern with the air of one who's fought this battle more times than he cares to count, "and each hive carries hundreds of darts. To take down even a small force of two or three hives we'll need thousands of fuci."

Elizabeth's, "And those are a bit harder to steal," comes out a little harsher than she probably intended but she appears to hate the ideal of stealing even more than she hates the idea of losing Atlantis, which is a moral quandary none of the rest of them – save Teyla – seem to be overly concerned with. Thank God.

"Exactly," John agrees, trying valiantly for amicability. "But Atlantis tells me that the machinery to build them is still intact. It's an automated system and, provided we can find a po- a ZPM with most of its charge, we can make a couple hundred of them in no time at all and still have power left over to raise the shields, giving us a chance to actually defeat our enemy."

It's a good plan. Rodney likes it – except for one fatal flaw which he cannot help but point out. "That still leaves us with the whole find a charged ZedPM problem though."

"But we already know someone with a fully charged ZPM."

"Who?"

"The Sudarian Quindosim."

There's silence in the conference room as the others take a moment to translate John-speak into normal English. Rodney uses it to stare at John like he's an idiot, like he might well be. "You mean Allina and her group?" he says at last, when the beat has gone on for so long he thinks the others must be lost. "She wouldn't give us their ZedPM last time we were on Dagan because she didn't think we were her gods. Somehow, I don't think us showing up again with guns is going to help us any, especially when she said they were going to hide their ZedPM on another world."

"They worship 'The Ancestors,'" John says, wrinkling his nose in a way that other people save for the idea of a fair and balanced discussion of Hitler's Final Solution at the dinner table, "and I'm an 'Ancestor.' So we've just got to convince them that I'm one of their gods and then all our problems should be solved."

"I hate to break it to you, lad," Carson says after a moment, "but you're the least god-like person I've ever had the privilege of meeting."

The Ancient in question's, "Thanks," appears genuinely warm and heartfelt, if problematic.

"Well. I see." Elizabeth interrupts, "It's an interesting idea, Major, but I don't think we're quite there yet."

"As much as I hate dabbling this close to haeresis it's not exactly like we have much of a choice, Elizabeta."

The others look at him for a translation but John's never exactly bothered explaining what haeresis is to him and the database holds no answers on the subject either, so Rodney just shrugs.

John continues on like they know exactly what he's talking about. "It's not like they're using it either. It's just some religious icon to them. And it's not exactly like we'd be lying to them, is it? They worship the 'Ancestors' and I'm one of them. By their own testament they're keeping it safe for whenever my race chooses to retur, and, since I'm the only one left, I think I've a pretty strong claim to it."

"I don't like playing on people's religious beliefs to get what we want."

"And I don't like playing god either but we do what we've got to do. 'Cause Atlantis is going to be destroyed and you right along with it unless you can think of a better plan and if you think I spent the last ten thousand years in the cathedra to see that happen, you're sorely mistaken, Elizabeta."

Elizabeth's mouth goes thin, the way it does when she's trying not to yell and the tension in the room ratchets up another couple of notches. Before she can say anything though, Teyla interrupts –

"I agree, Doctor Weir. If this is to be our end it is best we face it with dignitary and honour."

\- which seems to placate Elizabeth somewhat. And, though Rodney's fairly certain he's the only one that can hear John's muttered, "Screw dignity," from the seat next to him, he decides to interject with his own idea before John can say something he'll truly regret.

The thing is though, normally John and Elizabeth get along fairly well, but ever since the issue with the nanovirius and John's blatant disregard of Elizabeth's orders, Doctor Weir has been getting anxious. Oh, everyone knows that John's desire for command of the Expedition is just about nil but no one can deny that Atlantis is John's and, if he so wished, he could take it from them with barely a thought. It's not a real threat but it's there just enough to put Elizabeth – a woman always painfully aware of just how tenuous her position is – on edge.

Add in this god talk and, well, they were at loggerheads.

"Let's hear it."

Rodney swallows nervously, "Well, it's really a long shot but I think it's, uh, most likely worth the effort. Of course, it would mostly be my effort-"

"Rodney," John says, drawing his name out in a way only he's ever managed, so it has more syllables than it ought.

"I think we can send a message back to Earth through the Stargate."

Everyone but John looks at him aghast, almost as aghast as they'd been when John was suggesting he play god. John just gets that contemplative look again, the one where it's rather painfully clear that he's running through equations and if-then statements in his head that haven't quite been invented on Earth yet to get whatever answer he's arriving at.

The others continue to gawk at him, asking not quite so stupid questions about where they're going to get the power.

"No to send a person, no," he tells them. "We'd never be able to maintain the wormhole long enough. But I think if we were able to tie together all of our power-generating capabilities, we might – and I emphasize might – be able to establish a wormhole long enough to send a message."

"High compression data-burst," John muses aloud, stealing his thunder and proving, as he rarely chooses to do, that he is a member of a highly-evolved race after all. "But they'd need a way to decode it on the other side or else it'd be fairly useless."

Rodney resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him. That would help no one, even if it would make him feel powers of ten better. "I helped the US Air Force refine their data encoding a few years back. Besides, Colonel Carter at the SGC's familiar enough with my work that she should be able to figure it out. Eventually."

John's expression shifts to the one he gets whenever Rodney mentions Sam. "You're just suggesting this now?"

"There is an eighty-three percent chance that it would overload our naquadah generators in the process."

"We can't take that risk, Rodney. Not even to warn Terra. No power, we don't have any sort of chance. At least with these fission reactors of yours we have some chance of defending ourselves."

"There are three Wraith hive ships on the way, Major. Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"Yes, and what do we do when they arrive and we have no way of stopping them?"

"Oh, and what do you propose we do now? Stand on the balconies and shoot at them with our P90s until we run out of ammo?"

It's Elizabeth's turn to interrupt before it turns into an all-out shouting match, green-lighting the project before they have a chance to say anything unforgivable to each other.

As he's heading out the door though, he hears John sidling up to Elizabeth and saying, "You do realize that if your Stargate Command was able to send help, they would have by now." They all know that. It's the truth none of them dare admit, but-

"I know," she says. "But we have a responsibility to report what we've learned here."

He can hear the scoffing in John's voice when he asks, "Even if it's the last thing you do?"

"Especially if it's the last thing we do," Elizabeth replies and if either of them says anything more, well, Rodney's too far away after that to hear anything more.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rodney doesn't know how she does it, but Elizabeth manages to convince John to send a message back to Earth. He's not there for the taping but Ford brings all the videos to him for editing and compressing so he sees it anyway.

This is what he says:

"I, um, I'm not entirely sure what to say here but Doctor Weir thinks it's important that I send some record back to Terra, because the knowledge of my people should not be forgotten. I'm probably the last person you'd want doing this, if that's the case, but I'm the only one that remains, so...

"My name is Iohannes Ianidedus Licinus Pastor and, before the Exodus, I was a tribunus in the Lantean Guard. Rather than leave Atlantis I hooked myself up to the control chair and ended up being held in stasis for the last ten thousand years. After Colonel Sumner's death, Elizabeta put me in charge of the military contingent of your Expedition... The Terrans call me John Sheppard and have made me a major in your air force, since I was primarily a pilot, but feel free to do with that as you will. I understand what it's like to have outsiders thrust into your military...

"Doctor McKay is, er, including all our mission reports in this transmission, so you can learn all about the Wraith that way but, um, there is a saying amongst my people that's awfully similar to one you have on Terra: those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it, and, well, I hear that the Asgard think you might one day be The Fifth Race of our old Alliance so maybe its best that I pass along some of our highlights, so you don't make the same mistakes as we did..."

John looks away from the screen for a long moment at this and Rodney has to cut out about a minute of silence before he continues, "Er, about seventy million years ago, in a galaxy clear on the other side of the universe, the Alteran people – the people you call Ancients – were at about the same level of scientific advancement you are now. Most of our population lived on our homeworld, Loegria, but a significant percentage of our people lived on colonies in the same system or else in nearby systems.

"We didn't have FTLs back then and certainly didn't have Stargates, so we didn't learn of the war that was brewing on Loegria until after it happened. From what we were able to piece together, the two main factions on the planet annihilated each other with their stockpile of nuclear weapons, leaving behind very few survivors... We probably shouldn't have been as surprised as we were. The factions had been fighting over land and water and interpretations of their holy book since the idea of war first arose. Looking back I'm rather surprised we managed to survive as a species long enough to achieve spaceflight...

"Anyway, those that survived were a very space-going people. There were a few colonies but mostly we built ever more complex ships to live in, until we eventually created urbes-naves like Atlantis, though she didn't come until right before the Schisma. During the next five million years we developed FTL, dabbled in genetic resequencing and some of us had even begun to Ascend... But you see, we were so much more advanced than any other race we came across that, for the most part, they regarded us as gods no matter how much we tried to convince them otherwise.

"We considered this haeresis for, though we'd stopped being religious about the same time as Loegria was destroyed, we still held to the belief that we were men, not gods and should not be regarded as such. However, as the Alteran people grew more advanced both genetically and scientifically, the harder it became to convince other races – and even ourselves – that that was true. Particularly when Ascension seemed so much like the mysticism of old...

"Eventually those who believed as we did were in the minority and the haeretici waged war against us...

"We lost, of course," John says indifferently, as if it were no surprise. Which, knowing the non-interference ideals of the Ancients they were familiar with practised, isn't that much of a surprise, "but during the fighting several of our urbes-naves, including Atlantis, were able to escape. We fled to a different galaxy and, using our newly developed Stargate system, ran as far as we could.

"After a few thousand years we arrived at Avalon – your Milky Way – and decided we had run far enough. Using our knowledge, we seeded life in our image there and sent out ships to populate other nearby galaxies... Eventually we met the Asgard, Nox, and Furlings and formed a great Alliance that we thought could withstand any danger.

"But then, about twelve thousand years ago, a great plague came to our people. We thought that the haeretici had finally found us and sent it to destroy us, because we felt that even our allies were not so advanced as to harm us that way. But we could not be sure so the five urbes-naves that remained fled to Pegasus.

"We soon found, though, that Pegasus was not as peaceful as we had hoped. Our descendants here had discovered our Stargate system and several worshipped the creators of that system as gods, much as we had been worshipped in our home galaxy. Those of us that remained after the plague decided that rather than run to a different galaxy or try to convince our descendants that we were not gods, which seemed futile, we would speed up our efforts at Ascension... One of those experiments led to the Wraith."

John is silent for a long moment here and hasn't been looking at the camera for ages. But, when he resumes with, "We chose not to fight, at first," he looks directly at the camera, as if he can see his viewers, "but the Wraith eventually turned on us as well and we had no choice. Nebrius and Tarquinus were destroyed in the early days of the fighting and Elorus fell not long after I was born. Triarius..." John swallows here. "Triarius was shot down not long before the Exodus, after which only Atlantis remained.

"Eventually we were too few to fight and those that remained chose to go back to Terra to live out the remainder of their days, my father among them..."

There is nothing for a long time; so long in fact that Rodney thinks Ford just forgot to turn off the tape. But after several minutes John speaks up again, still looking directly at the camera. "I don't know exactly why I'm telling you this. I've tried to keep it from the Expedition for the last nine months... But I suppose there's no point in hiding it any longer.

"Maybe the moral of the story is not to mess about with genetic resequencing or not to nuke your homeworld. Maybe it's to not ever let yourself be thought of as gods. I dunno. But somebody should know, in case..."

The film cuts out there.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All of this, though, means nothing until Grodin's died on the Lagrange point satellite and Rodney's back in the Control Room, watching the two hive ships on the monitor start to creep closer and closer.

"If they get here in two hours or two days," Elizabeth says, looking pale, "it doesn't change the fact that we're out of options. We can't hope to fight them, so unless either of you have any more ideas..."

There's silence for a moment amid the flurry of activity and then John speaks up:

He looks genuinely like he's about to be sick, as if watching another evacuation of Atlantis is going to be enough to push him over the edge to the point where he's going to lose all of what little will he has to continue living. Atlantis might be able to exist without her pastores but a large part of Rodney thinks John won't be able to manage without Atlantis.

Oh, John might love him, but Atlantis is something else altogether. (He'd once jokingly called the city John's wife and himself his mistress and John hadn't bothered trying to convince him otherwise.) She's too firmly entrenched in his mind. That might just be the case with all pastores, but he somehow doubts it. Janus' words to him from months before echo in his own mind: Ten thousand years in a cathedra, in constant communication with an urbs-navis with more sensors and scanners and systems most of our descendants can't dare imagine might one day exist? Even if Licinus doesn't consciously realise it, he's bound to remember every moment of it, in excruciating detail."

No, John isn't a normal pastor and Atlantis has taken advantage of it. She's taken over his mind, he can see it now in the way, despite himself, he opens his mouth and forces out the words, "I've an idea."

Elizabeth looks relieved, almost smiling when she says, "Let's hear it."

"I could Ascend."

The others stare at him like they don't know what to make of his words.

Rodney just tries to get his mouth working and can't. This has to be Atlantis' idea because there's just no way John could ever come up with an idea like that, even if he is crazy and self-destructive and suicidal. It's-

Actually, it's a perfect John-idea now that he thinks of it. It puts all of the burden and all of the risk on him, leaving the rest of them free to escape unscathed should they choose to do so.

"I'm not that far from it, actually," he continues surprisingly. "I just never wanted to. But if I do that, I should have the power to stop the Wraith attack. It won't stop others from trying again but it'll buy you some time to find a charged ZPM."

Rodney thinks he's going to be sick.

Elizabeth looks like she might join him. "But aren't there rules about...? When Doctor Jackson interfered when he was Ascended, the others..." The others punished him and you rather got the impression that returning him to corporal form was about the least-punishing of things they could have done to him.

"Yeah, there are rules. The others will probably punish me. If I'm lucky they'll just chain me to Lantea, rather like they did with Chaya... If I'm not," he shrugs, trying (and somehow succeeding) for nonchalance, "well, at least Atlantis will be safe. And that's all that matters."

"You can't," Rodney hears himself saying faintly and John's eyes latch onto him. They look like they want to say so much, much like they had during the storm when John had grabbed hold of him like he never, ever wanted to let go, only more so.

They've only been together two months, give or take. But he'll be damned if he's going to give it up just so John can get himself Ascended. Screw Atlantis he wants to say, but can't because, well, it's Atlantis. If it was anything – anyone – else, Rodney thinks he could but he can't ask John not to try. To do so would be to deny everything about the man he's fallen (dare he think it?) in love with and he can't do that. Not to John.

That doesn't mean he has to like it though and he's about to say so when John steps closer, looking like he knows exactly what's going through Rodney's mind, and kisses him right there in the Control Room in front of the others.

It's a perfect kiss, as if John's going for something he's going to be able to look back at for the rest of eternity and think in this moment, I was happy, and when he pulls back Rodney can already feel him growing more insubstantial, a bright white light pouring from his body...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AE - Atlantis Expedition, (also Atlantis Expeditio) ie the time since the discovery of Atlantis by the Terrans. Began c. July 2004 AD, or 10324 AL  
> AL - Aetas Lanteae, or The Age of Lantea, ie, the time Atlantis has been on Lantea. Began c. 8338 BC  
> Atlantis - A City-Ship, discovered by the Tau'ri in 10342 AL, or 2004 AD, or 1 AE  
> Elorus - A City-Ship, destroyed c. 108 AL, or 8230 BC  
> The Exodus - When the Ancients abandoned Atlantis for Earth, c. 139 AL, or 8199 BC  
> Haeresis - Heresy, or Origin, ie, the Belief that the Alteran People are Gods  
> Haereticus - Heretic, ie, an Ori  
> Heros - Hero or Demigod  
> Loegria – the Alteran homeworld in an unnamed galaxy; rendered uninhabitable by nuclear fallout c. 70 million years ago  
> Nebrius - A City-Ship, destroyed c. 65 AL, or 8273 BC  
> Schisma - Schism, ie, when the Alterans broke apart from the Ori


End file.
